Aer Rianta's plans for a new runway at Dublin Airport do not provide for regular landings by the new "super jumbo" Airbus A380, it was revealed yesterday.

Described as the "green giant", the aircraft is the largest commercial airliner in the world and Airbus believes it can revolutionise air travel over the next 20 years.

It is capable of carrying 555 passengers and is the world's only twin-deck, four-aisle airliner. Already several large carriers like Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic, Singapore Air, Air France, Emirates Air and Qantas Airways have placed orders with Airbus.

However, the director of Dublin Airport, Mr Robert Hilliard, told a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport that its parallel runway plan did not make provision for such planes.

He said the current cost of €130 million might need to rise to €170 million if the A380 was to be provided for.

He said some space would be left beside the parallel runway and this might be converted in future years for aircraft of that size, but it was unlikely such aircraft would want to use Dublin. However, he assured members that space was safeguarded.

He said the A380 would be flying long haul into hub airports like Charles De Gaulle Paris, and London Heathrow.

Committee members asked whether it would not be better to make the runway wide enough to take the A380 now, rather than in a few years time. Mr Hilliard said "that would be wrong thing to do".

He said very large aircraft did land from time to time at Dublin and arrangements had been made to take them and this could be done again. However, he said it would be costly if the A380 was accommodated as part of a regular service.

"There is a cost to over-providing," he said. Allowing for the A380 would mean the runway being over 30 per cent wider. "We need to convince our users - the airlines - that the costs are reasonable," he said.

Mr John Ellis, TD, said the company might be better doing all the works now or the consumer might be later stuck with a bill for upgrading the runway.

Mr Hilliard said he retained his view that such aircraft would not be using Dublin. "We must be guided by the forecasted growth," he told the committee, although he said he would reflect on the comments of the members.

Mr Hilliard was giving a presentation to the committee on the northern parallel runway, which Aer Rianta hopes will get planning permission from Fingal County Council either this year or next.

Mr Hilliard warned that, unless extra capacity was made available at the airport, services might have to be turned away. He said the airport would reach its capacity by 2008/09.

"If, by that time, additional runway capacity has not been created, there will be a significant and growing shortfall between the runway capacity on the east coast and the demand being created by the airlines," he said.

A group of residents from Portmarnock known as UPROAR (the United Portmarnock Residents Opposing Another Runway) disagreed fundamentally with the plan in their presentation.

The group has set up a website, www.norunway, to campaign on the issue.