Airport operator DAA will lower charges for Cork Airport to persuade airlines to transfer routes from Dublin to Cork rather than dropping them completely due to an ongoing cap on numbers coming through Dublin Airport.
DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs said on Monday that the move to offer lower landing charges was designed to encourage airlines capped from growing at Dublin to take advantage of Cork Airport’s “excellent facilities” where there is no issue with capacity.
“Good connectivity throughout the island is critical to attracting tourists and investment to Ireland and there is a real danger of losing out to other countries while the Dublin cap remains in place,” he said at the launch of a report on the economic benefits of Cork Airport to the region,
“Airlines that move routes and traffic from Dublin to Cork Airport will be offered lower charges at Cork Airport to encourage airlines to keep those routes in Ireland and to support jobs and connectivity,” he said.
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Industry sources told The Irish Times that the new measure would involve airlines that switch routes from Dublin to Cork being offered zero charges in Cork. It will apply only on those routes that would otherwise had gone to Dublin.
The same sources say they did not expect either Ryanair or Aer Lingus to avail of the offer as to do so would be to recognise the cap, which both have opposed. The new incentives are likely to prove most attractive to other carriers seeking to fly into Dublin.
Mr Jacobs said the DAA is keen to grow business at Cork Airport by 40 per cent by the end of the decade. That would involve expanding traffic to the airport from one where some routes are simply summer services to an all year round services.
“Given the GDP, the population here, [we are looking at] getting the airlines to take it really seriously all year round so that it is not really summer seasonal heavy. We want to back this airport for a number of years, so it is really, really significant.”
He said this would involve investment in the airport itself such as demolishing the old terminal to develop new aircraft handling piers.
“If you talk about Cork and Dublin combined, our two airports are contributing close to €12 billion in value added – about 125,000 jobs. You get the sense of how important airports are in a small, open island economy and that is why we want to keep growing.
“Not everybody likes the word growth when it comes to aviation, but it is really, really essential for Ireland’s connectivity – that is the world coming here on its holidays, the world coming here to do business, which is what we all want, and it is us going to explore the world.”
Mr Kenny said the DAA needed to take a long-term view when it comes to planning future growth. He cited the case of Istanbul, where the mayor, airport management and Turkish Airlines have developed a 25-year plan for their airport.
“They want to double the size of their airport in the next 15 years, and they want to double the size of their airline in the next 15 years. Go back to Ireland, by 2050 our population is forecast to grow by over 33 per cent.
“Cork Airport by that time will need to be an airport that can sustain seven million passengers and Dublin Airport will need to be an airport that can sustain 50 million passengers. People will say I am nuts talking about those numbers but that is just 25 years away.”
Under planning permission granted for a second terminal at Dublin Airport in 2007 and the extension of the existing terminal in 2008, a cap of 32 million passengers per annum was introduced. The limit was almost reached in 2023 when 31.9 million passengers went through the airport.
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