{"id":67076,"date":"2025-09-16T06:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T06:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/67076\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T06:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T06:56:07","slug":"why-is-kenny-jacobs-in-the-daa-departure-lounge-so-early-into-his-contract-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/67076\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Kenny Jacobs in the DAA departure lounge so early into his contract? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAA<\/a> chief executive Kenny Jacobs<\/a> is in talks that could lead to him leaving the State airports operator after less than three years. At issue is a rift with the DAA board that has led to open speculation about his future. <\/p>\n

But who is Jacobs? And how did he come to be in the departure lounge so soon into a seven-year contract?<\/p>\n

Jacobs arrived at DAA in January 2023 from Ryanair<\/a>, where he spent more than six years as chief marketing officer. He also previously worked for Procter & Gamble, Accenture, Metro Group GmbH, Moneysupermarket and Tesco. <\/p>\n

But it was the Ryanair role that stood out. The airline\u2019s relations with DAA would hardly be described as harmonious, so his appointment led to surprise in Dublin Airport. <\/p>\n

After all, Ryanair\u2019s pugnacious chief Michael O\u2019Leary<\/a> has often branded DAA and its political masters as hopeless incompetents. Jacobs was responsible for Ryanair digital operations, customer service, marketing and communications. The airline was never known for a softly-softly approach.<\/p>\n

The DAA controls vital national infrastructure, crucial for the connectivity of Ireland\u2019s trade-dependent island economy. It is also highly politicised.<\/p>\n

Jacobs told the Sunday Independent in May how he brought a \u201ctake-no-s**t\u201d attitude to DAA from Ryanair. \u201cYeah, we\u2019re sticking our elbows out \u2013 and I\u2019m comfortable with us having an uneasy relationship \u2013 because of our ambition and because we are really, really performing quite well.\u201d<\/p>\n

That Jacobs\u2019s \u201celbows-out\u201d approach rankled with some within DAA is now clear. In aviation circles, he was known for a certain brashness. \u201cThere\u2019s an irreverence, but I think he takes pride in the irreverence,\u201d one person familiar with his work said. \u201cHe\u2019s also a bit self-consumed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The submission of two protected disclosures about Jacobs was seen as a sign of discord within DAA. But neither complaint was upheld after investigations commissioned by the DAA board from Mark Connaughton SC.<\/p>\n

Asked direct questions about how Jacobs dealt with the fallout from the complaints, DAA said it was constrained by law from comment. \u201cAll concerns raised under DAA\u2019s protected disclosure policy are reviewed, and we confirm that no complaints have been upheld,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The troubles did not end there. After breaching the 32 million annual passenger cap at Dublin Airport last year, DAA has struggled to advance successive Fingal County Council<\/a> planning applications to raise the cap to 40 million and 36 million passengers. Fingal council has blamed DAA for delays, but DAA insists it is not to blame and said many matters were beyond its control.<\/p>\n

Still, Fingal council chief executive AnnMarie Farrelly is known to have raised concerns about DAA planning issues with the Department of Transport<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe chief executive would have expressed those frustrations to the department and would also have advocated for a joint stakeholder approach to the development of the airport,\u201d a local authority source said. The spokeswoman for Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien<\/a> said he had no comment.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien stayed largely silent on Jacobs as the board rift spilt into the open last week. But O\u2019Brien acknowledged on Monday that talks were ongoing and that he would have to sign off on any financial package if Jacobs were to leave his post. \u201cWe are not there yet,\u201d the Minister said. <\/p>\n

That O\u2019Brien has signalled political moves to scrap the 32 million cap is a sign of Government concern about the situation in DAA. That it was open to him to intervene earlier is another matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs is in talks that could lead to him leaving the State airports operator…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,38997,2914,24001,26,18,10410,19,17,40609,623],"class_list":{"0":"post-67076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-daa","10":"tag-darragh-o-brien","11":"tag-department-of-transport","12":"tag-dublin-airport","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-fingal-county-council","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-kenny-jacobs","18":"tag-ryanair"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67076","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=67076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}