A new car-park at Dublin Airport has sparked a price war with Aer Rianta, whose monopoly on parking spaces has been challenged for the first time. The "Quick Park" car-park opens at 8 a.m. today and will be open 24 hours a day.
Quick Park is the latest business venture of the Aircoach service founder, Mr John O'Sullivan. It is located on a 29.5-acre site on the old Airport Road and will take up to 3,500 cars.
"It will allow the travelling passenger to park in a 24-hour, low- price, secure environment," Mr O'Sullivan said.
The car-park will be serviced by a fleet of free coaches travelling to and from the main terminal every five minutes.
Mr O'Sullivan said: "Quick Park will now bring competition and will challenge the State monopoly by Aer Rianta on its overpriced car-parking tariff. We believe Quick Park will hugely benefit the already overcharged and under-serviced consumer."
He said the prices would offer a huge saving to the frequent flyer in terms of parking.
An Aer Rianta spokesman said yesterday: "Aer Rianta welcomes the competition brought by Quick Park. We would have expected them to set their initial prices lower than ours and now that we know their prices, we will build that into our competitive strategy in 2004."
Quick Park's standard daily tariff is €5 a day. For one hour the price is €1 up to five hours, which then becomes the daily rate.
In the Aer Rianta car-parks the tariff for long-term car parking is €7.50 per day or €43 for an eight-day week. The short-term is €1.10 for the first half an hour, then €2.30 an hour after that and after eight hours to 24 hours, €20 a day.
Aer Rianta has space for over 18,000 cars and offers a free shuttle service from the terminal to the long-term car-park.
Mr O'Sullivan said: "Quick Park will provide the frequent leisure or business traveller with low-cost parking and a shuttle service to and from the airport that will be quicker than looking for a parking space in the overcrowded airport car-park."