Ryanair and Aer Lingus have secured formal High Court permission to bring challenges against the Irish Aviation Authority’s (IAA) decision to limit passenger numbers in Dublin Airport for the coming winter season.
Last May the IAA announced that it would be imposing a Passenger Air Traffic Movement seat cap of just over 14.4 million passengers in Dublin Airport during the period commencing on October 27th, 2024, and ending March 29th, 2025.
Both airlines claim the decision is legally flawed and should be set aside.
The grounds for the airlines’ challenges include that in arriving at its decision the IAA acted irrationally and outside of its powers.
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It is also claimed that the IAA has failed to give proper reasons for its decision and has breached various constitutional rights of the airlines, including their property rights.
Airport operator DAA has also brought a separate High Court action against the IAA’s decision.
When the airlines’ cases came before the court on Monday, Martin Hayden SC, for Ryanair, and Paul Sreenan SC, for Aer Lingus, said the airlines’ actions have been brought on different legal grounds to those advanced by DAA.
Mr Sreenan said the decision will negatively affect Aer Lingus’s ability to provide certain winter services including flights taking children to Lapland around Christmas time and flights to ski resorts in France, Austria and Switzerland.
Mr Hayden told the court Ryanair fears its business would be prejudiced by the decision, particularly if similar restrictions are put in place regarding passenger numbers for the summer 2025 period.
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Counsel said Ryanair’s current “best guesstimate” is that another “artificial cap” on passenger numbers at the airport may result in the loss of some 5,600 slots for that period.
This could mean Ryanair loses up to €89 million in that season.
As well as seeking orders quashing the IAA’s decision, the airlines seek a declaration that the respondent erred in law regarding the allocation of slots at EU airports in treating certain planning conditions of Dublin Airport’s Terminal 2 as relevant constraints for setting co-ordination parameters for the airport.
The DAA and the UK-based Airport Coordination Limited, which is the appointed co-ordinator of slots at Dublin Airport after the parameters have been set, are notice parties to the airlines’ actions.
Both applications came before Ms Justice Niamh Hyland on Monday, who, on an ex parte basis, granted the airlines permission to bring their challenges.
She said both airlines had the legal standing to bring their respective actions, had made out arguable grounds and that they had no alternative way to challenge the decision except by way of judicial reviews.
The judge adjourned the airlines’ actions to a date next week.
In reply to the judge, counsel for the airlines expressed their hope that all three challenges against the IAA’s decision could be heard in succession by the same judge.
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