Ryanair has applied for a judicial review in the High Court to challenge a limit on night flights at Dublin Airport to 35,672 a year.
The airline said the ruling by planning appeals board, An Coimisiún Pleanála, amounted to “an illegal second movements cap” at the facility.
An Coimisiún Pleanála said in July it would extend the hours the airport could from its new north runway to between 6am and midnight. Previously, there had been a ban on landing or taking off from that runway between 11pm and 7am.
The decision means the average number of flights allowed through the airport’s two runways between 11pm and 7am increased to 98 from 65 a day. However, this was made subject to an annual limit on night flights of 35,672.
The older south runway remains open through the night, while the north runway will close between midnight and 6am.
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Planners also proposed that night-time noise be managed through a quota system, something sought by airlines and the airport operator, DAA.
In a statement on Tuesday, Ryanair said the restrictions imposed in July “artificially limit night movements”, and block early morning pre-7am arrivals, which it described as “vital for transatlantic landings” between 5am and 7am.
It also said the ruling would delay “much-needed investment and growth” at Ireland’s main gateway airport, as well as “strangle transatlantic traffic, damage growth and short-haul connectivity”.
It said An Coimisiún Pleanála had failed to explain why it overruled the specialist airport noise regulator, Anca, which had rejected a movement cap in favour of a night-time noise quota system.
This, it argued, would have allowed Dublin Airport to grow through use of quieter, more modern aircraft such as Ryanair’s new B737 aircraft.
“Instead, An Coimisiún Pleanála’s blunt and unlawful movement cap reduces consumer choice, damages connectivity and punishes investment, while doing nothing to encourage airlines who operate newer, quieter aircraft,” the airline said.
“Sadly, Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien has continued to sit on his hands doing nothing to scrap the 2007 [passenger] cap, despite the Programme for Government pledging to abolish it ‘as soon as possible’.
“Now there is a second passenger cap at Dublin Airport damaging the growth of Irish tourism and jobs, while this do-nothing Government sits around pondering options as its preferred alternative to action.”
The Department of Transport, DAA, and Fingal County Council have been approached for comment.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “These two artificial caps at Dublin Airport are unlawful. They are in breach the EU’s fundamental right to freedom of movement and they are also in breach of the EU-US “open skies” flight agreement.
“Any competent Government would by now have already scrapped the original 32 million traffic cap at Dublin Airport, given that the January 2025 Government programme promised to do so as soon as possible.
“Not alone has transport minister Darragh O’Brien done nothing for nine months, but now the incompetent bureaucrats at An Coimisiún Pleanála have imposed a second illegal cap which limits early morning arrivals between 5am to 7am, when most transatlantic flights arrive in Dublin.”
Mr O’Leary said the night flying restrictions would “damage existing transatlantic flights and shut off long haul traffic growth in Dublin, at a time when visitor numbers to Ireland are declining”.
He added the airline “has no choice” but to seek a judicial review of “this latest unlawful planning stupidity”.