Dublin Airport New Runway/Infrastructure.

One of the issues is; where do you decant all the existing traffic to whilst you demolish and rebuild a pier? There is no spare room anywhere.

Dublin Airport is one of the few capital/major airports in the world that does not publish a Masterplan, which should set out the 25 year vision in some detail, and also be revised every five years. It may well have such a plan, but it isn’t published.

The whole planning environment in Ireland, at least as far as airport development is concerned, is dysfunctional. A lack of political will, which is affected by which way the wind blows, how near to an election, etc. is at the heart of it; there’s no strategic, long range planning. Such a shame, because some enlightened group did an excellent job back in the late 1960s. Where are their successors?

The planning authorities, Fingal CoCo and An Bord Pleanala, take years to make decisions. The requests for further information are numerous. The whole thing needs a major overhaul. Will that happen? I think we probably know the answer.

Meanwhile, caps limit the ability of the airport to provide for airlines which want to serve Ireland. We are turning business (=income) away as a country. It’s got to be madness.

Maybe if they weren't forced to charge such low landing fees…

Whatever about ABP, FCC are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.

Maybe the only way the passenger cap issue will be resolved is for the DAA to do nothing, so sometime in Novembebr or December the cap will be breached. Then either (a) there is no real action, in the good old Irish tradition of poor enforcement of regulations, or (b) the planners order no more passengers to be handled for the next 4 to 8 weeks (including Christmas). This would provole such a crisis that the Government would have to enact whatever emergency legislation was necessary to resolve things.

And of course all thhis might well be in the run up to a General Election.

FCC made a decision under current planning law. The only way for Government to override this is to have amending legislation drafted and enacted. That requires the Government to agree a unified position and ultimately for both Houses of the Oireachtas and the President to effect whatever changes might be involved. How likely is this in the short-term? Not very, in my view.

It’s a fairly damming incitement of the current government that the scenario above is probably the only way anything will get done!

An interesting question. What exactly is the legal basis of the cap? Are there other areas where similar capacity limits are set, apart from fire regulations etc? Is the action of the planners ultra vires?

Would FCC be gung-ho enough to seek an injunction to close the airport for a few weeks?

All of this really exposes the madness of the cap and the over-reach of the planners.

Do other airports in other countries have caps like Dublin? Like Manchester or Edinburgh for example? Or is it just something that's unique to DUB?

There's a lot of airports that have night flying restrictions, designed to put a limit on the noise at night. But I'm not aware of one that has a blanket passenger number cap like DUB.

This is what the infrastructure application and night flight application are up against and why they are/ will be delayed for longer than necessary.

I have blocked out this posters name, but statements such as this should in no way be entertained or observations at planning stage/ appeals like this one should be thrown out.

The poster is concerned for the residents exposed to night noise in NEW build houses built on a flight path to an international airport nearly 90 years old, but it’s the airport that should be restricted.

This St Margaret Group have no valid concerns if this is what they are resorting to.

Thank you, I hadn't seen this, so I'll read it with interest. Looking far ahead is critical and I'd be very happy if they are starting to do, and publish, their thinking.

It's totally unacceptable at this stage. The new runway has been in operation for over a year and a half and any hint of low clouds or visibility and it is shut down. It is nowhere near LVP weather either. Who is taking responsibility for this and when will this be resolved? Progress is too slow.

Unrelated - that FR aircraft needed to land immediately with 10R available, albeit with restrictions.

Isn’t it the IAA that’s the problem here, and their own lack of sufficient staff?