Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways are at different stages in their return to full operations, the airport\u2019s managing director Gary McLean said today.<\/p>\n
Despite this, there was \u201clow single-digit growth\u201d in passenger numbers at the airport in April, which followed a 9pc increase between January and March.<\/p>\n
Dublin Airport is expecting to handle 11 million passengers over the summer months, about 2pc more than last summer. This equates to more than 100,000 passengers going through the airport every day between the start of June and the end of August.<\/p>\n
The previous record busiest day \u2013 130,427 passengers on August 10 of last year \u2013 \u201cis almost certain to be eclipsed\u201d, the operator DAA said.<\/p>\n
With the cap of 32 million passengers a year having no practical effect at the moment, as both the courts and the Oireachtas make decisions on its future, there is likely to be another increase in passenger numbers at the airport this year, over the 36.4 million recorded in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a marginal 2pc increase in passenger number over the next few months, but the winter is still very much an unknown in relation to what will happen with wider travel, fuel and pricing,\u201d Mr McLean said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect to see some level of growth versus last year, although there is still a bit of uncertainty at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next big decision about Dublin Airport\u2019s capacity relates to the summer of 2027, and airlines have said they would like the cap clarified by September at the latest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re obviously hopeful there will be some clarity or else we will have to look at alternative options,\u201d Mr McLean said.<\/p>\n
In relation to the threat of retaliation made by the US Department of Transport against Aer Lingus if the cap is not lifted, he said all parties with an interest in the subject \u201care closely monitoring how the legislation\u201d to lift the restriction is progressing.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week the Americans pushed back the deadline for action until June 5 to give more time for intergovernmental discussions and exchanges of correspondence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the decision they\u2019ve made is obviously aligned to the progress that we\u2019re seeing and probably the engagement they\u2019re having with the Irish Government as well,\u201d Mr McLean said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re working closely with our own airlines and the US airlines and authorities in relation to the process. Hopefully we can get a quick decision on the legislation that will avoid the suggested response.\u201d<\/p>\n
In relation to the disruption being caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the airport MD said it is not seeing any short-term impact on jet fuel supply.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re working closely with our Middle Eastern airlines, who are only at two-thirds of their operations. While they\u2019re planning to get back, things could change, as we know, at any point,\u201d Mr McLean said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week we should have about 40 departures to the Middle East, and we\u2019re running at about two thirds of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more of a network decision as opposed to a Dublin Airport-specific decision. As they expand their network, we will get more planned flights back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways are at different stages in their return to full operations, the airport\u2019s managing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,38997,26,18,19,17,6501],"class_list":["post-473618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-daa","tag-dublin-airport","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-burns"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116535240242066312","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}