Who actually wants the Dublin Airport passenger cap abolished?

Yeah Right · 15-10-2025 04:35PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123908032#Comment_123908032

Plane:

2 hrs in Dublin airport, 90 min flight journey, 30 mins to final destination………………………..versus

Train:

20 mins in Dublin Port, at least 2hrs 15mins on the Ferry, 40 mins going to/waiting in train station, 4hrs train journey to London (some of them are closer to 5)…………..versus

Bus:

20 mins in Dublin Port, possibly 3hrs 30mins on the Ferry, 20 mins waiting on bus, 7hrs 30mins on bus, 20 mins to final destination

You're gonna eat what you're gonna eat, but if your journey takes 12hrs, Joe Bloggs' takes 8.5hrs and mine takes only 4hrs, I guarantee you I'll spend less on food and drink than both of you. Guarantee it. I'll be home and all for dinner before the bus fella even arrives in London, sure.

ETA: Forgot to include, the original point is that the other poster raised it as an extra expense you'd incur when flying. If that's fair game, then surely including costs that you'd incur when using other modes is also fair game?

He's trying, and failing, to make the point that getting the ferry is normally cheaper. This is demonstrably untrue. Even before we include all of the other extra-curricular stuff like food and pints etc.

cdeb · 15-10-2025 05:05PM

If another poster made the point as of food being an extra expense of flying (did they?), then they're equally wrong. I mean, once you get where you're going and you're waiting on your mate on the ferry, you're going to go get something to eat.

So let's quietly leave it to one side as a silly argument that has no impact on anything.

The reality is Dublin-London overland at €58 is quite comparable to the cheapest flights (you didn't include any bags for example), and that's silly - air needs to be made more expensive. Then of course Ryanair are liable to catch you in Michael O'Leary's algorithms which adds the price up there.

Bottom line - rail v air for Dublin to London is comparable in price, maybe 8 hours v 5 hours, and cuts down on emissions by 80-90%. Again, if that's not a good trade off, I don't know what is.

faceman · 15-10-2025 05:21PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123908315#Comment_123908315

I have done plenty of business trips to London from Dublin that were same day return. Tell me how sail and rail is better again?

How about sail and rail to anywhere else besides London?

I've taken the ferry to France and Spain and driven to onward destinations. It's a novelty road trip but time consuming and highly impractical for most travellers.

blackwhite · 15-10-2025 05:27PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123908376#Comment_123908376

Sail-rail doesn’t make sense for day-return trips. Especially to places like London that have a longer rail element to them.

In terms of destination - you can buy a sail-rail ticket to pretty much any mainline station in the UK

SeanW · 15-10-2025 07:12PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123907359#Comment_123907359

There's one very good reason to prefer Dublin airport of regional ones - public transport access. Throw a dart at a map of Leinster and its very likely that the nearest town has better PT to Dublin than even Limerick, let alone Shannon. All that is in addition to the critical mass of the Greater Dublin Area itself.

Historically, government has taken actions to force traffic over to regional airports the results have been anywhere from inconvenient to comically absurd. I remember back in the day you'd need to do a day trip by car to get to Shannon because of limitations on transatlantic service from Dublin. Indeed have some less than fond memories of being stuck outside Loughrea for hours. Whereas from the same place you could be in Dublin Airport in under 3 hours, most of the way by train and/or bus (if not all of it, depending on how close you are to the train/bus stop). There was other nonsense too, like giving Dublin Airport the shortest main runway of any main airport of any capital city in Europe, in a misguided attempt to force large or heavily laden aircraft to use Shannon, which of course didn't happen, it simply meant that heavy cargo planes would partially unload in Manchester and that airplanes like the Boeing Dreamliner do not come to Dublin at all.

Adding to this is that for most people going to the continent, using Knock or Shannon would mean "doubling back" i.e. going West to the Airport only to have to fly East to their destination, whereas Dublin is East for most and "on the way" to England or France or wherever.

All of this is even more bizarre when you consider that Ireland is a remote island country that depends heavily on air links. Hamstringing our nearest equivalent to Heathrow or Schiphol just strikes me as misguided to beyond the point of absurdity.

Red Silurian · 15-10-2025 07:44PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123908039#Comment_123908039

Not everybody flying to Amsterdam uses it as their final destination. Schipol is a fantastically easy airport to transfer at

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123908722#Comment_123908722

Of course the reason the PT is so good to Dublin is because of the airport being so busy

Lillyfae · 15-10-2025 08:28PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123908722#Comment_123908722

Completely agree with this but centralizing everything in Dublin is not a long term strategy either, there’s no space for it if you consider how much population levels have changed. Infrastructure needs improvement everywhere, not just in Dublin.

CardF · 15-10-2025 08:55PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123906550#Comment_123906550

wrong on just about every point.

the situation does exist, airlines default to the busiest routes as was explained and statistically proven to you earlier.
a capital can be far smaller in resources than bigger cities in the same country, e.g. abuja is less populated than lagos, canberra less populated than melbourne. We put economic investment in Dublin because most people are in Dublin, because most economic investment is in Dublin, because most people are in Dublin, because most economic investment is in Dublin, because …. yes its tiring isnt it. It should be obvious. Try to remember it this time.
a market can be centralized, to various degrees, our air transport market happens to be 90% centered in Dublin. 9 of our 10 eggs in 1 basket so to speak. an immoderate situation that rewards investors in the short term each time. but nobody else in the long term. Good idea up to a point, at ~35 million pax we're now past that point.
my actual suggestion is no more growth in flight numbers for DUB. any new flights can go elsewhere in Ireland, demand for DUB or not. DUB, like the rest of the city/county/capital/region is full.
yet more flights is harmful to Dublin, harmful in noise and traffic which we can't support. harmful to regions which cant compete with the demand/population cycle.
govt have to intervene on this or it will just continue as the easier short term option with long term harm, same as with coal. so yes it was a great analogy, perfect in fact. I have great analogies, the best in the world, everyones saying it.

CardF · 15-10-2025 09:09PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123907492#Comment_123907492

increasing flight noise over the capital is also a shyte experience. more muppets piling in to dublin is also a shyte experience. too far away is a question for them, not me, a native born dub.

it makes sense from the point of view of growing towns and cities elsewhere in the country to force passengers to new places, which gives everyone more options when it comes to building a life.

an option other than every clown from sligo to nigeria piling into one city and turning it into a congested expensive shythole, now with bonus flight noise. because theres nowhere else. because all the opportunity is in dublin because all the people are in dublin.

maybe thats why the french paid ryanair to fly to those otherwise empty airports. id bet that they werent the only ones.

i bet we end up being among the dumbos who wouldnt think ahead and do something similar.

think longer term.

astrofool · 15-10-2025 10:24PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123909012#Comment_123909012

When given the "choice", due to cap restrictions, slots went to airports outside of Ireland, not other Irish airports...

This isn't Dublin vs. Shannon, it's Ireland vs. other countries, our population density means Manchester or Newcastle will always be better options for airline slots than Shannon or Cork.

Decentralisation could be a long term strategy but it takes decades and massive population growth.

Bass Reeves · 15-10-2025 10:55PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123909201#Comment_123909201

Decentralised takes decisions by Government in particular to reorganise resources and target an area or group of areas that can sustain growth.

Back in the noughties the first decentralised plan was proposed, there was one fir everyone in the audience. Instead of targeting Cork/Limerick/Galway as a hub, it was decided to add Sligo/Donegal, Athlone/Mullingar/Tullamore, Waterford/Wrxford/Kilkenny, even Tralee and Killarney.

Resources were split too much. Motorway to Waterford and from Galway to Limerick as well as secondary routes were produced ahead of the Cork to Linerick Motorway which got abandoned doue to the 2008-2010 economic crash.

Decentralised is not just about population growth, but about targeting where that growth takes place. But it also requires positive decision-making by government to force it in the direction required.

If in the decentralised planing the early/mid noughties the government had pushed the Cork/Limerick/Galway axis and targeted as much structural funds in that direction Dublin might not have half the structural issues it has now.

astrofool · 15-10-2025 11:21PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123909263#Comment_123909263

It leads to population growth if done right, expensive infrastructure requires population to justify it or it gets mothballed (witness our old derelict rail network). However, decentralisation was not a popular policy and ended up being dropped, I don't see it coming back and given the issues a small population increase has had across the country, I doubt areas growing to the levels needed to justify another major international airport will happen any time soon.

Mellor · 16-10-2025 04:56AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123907697#Comment_123907697

Build it and they will come… That's largely an issue with increasing the cap isn't it? If you increase the cap more people will use the airport, meaning more traffic getting into and out of the airport.

No that's not how it works.
People do not consider the capacity of an airport when making travel plans. They pick the airport they want to fly from .
Shannon has more capacity than demand. There's no need to do anything at Shannon until demand is greater. Dublin's demand has surpassed the cap. Cork is getting close to capacity.

If the price is right for an airline to fly a 150 seater jet twice a week into Shannon or Cork it should be viable to have such a route regardless of whether Dublin already has it or not

That true. But the fact those routes are not being by smashed international visitors proves there isn't demand to make it viable.

With any luck allowing the cap to be raised only after infrastructure is built should bring about faster deployment of infrastructure.

DDA are not responsible for those projects. Can't make it a condition of their planning. DDA's infrastructure relates to airport road junctions only.

Mellor · 16-10-2025 04:59AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123907839#Comment_123907839

Expect that it's reasons are incorrect. There is no limit on who can come and go. But the reality is any piece of infrastructure has a limit.

The airport was designed for 32m, it was assessed based on 32m. In order to provide an airport to handle 40m, there needs to be a assessment of the impact of 40m, and a design working towards that number. That is painfully simply. Anyone not grasping that is living in la-la land - and their opinions treated as such.

Mellor · 16-10-2025 06:05AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123909012#Comment_123909012

LMFAO a load of nonsens

the situation does exist, airlines default to the busiest routes as was explained and statistically proven to you earlier.

You said air travel is being centralised. 6 internal airports proved that wrong.
Your "statistics" highlighted that Dublin has the highest demand. Claiming that it's not demand, and people are forced there is idiotic.

a capital can be far smaller in resources than bigger cities in the same country, e.g. abuja is less populated than lagos, canberra less populated than melbourne. We put economic investment in Dublin because most people are in Dublin, because most economic investment is in Dublin, because most people are in Dublin, because most economic investment is in Dublin, because …. yes its tiring isnt it. It should be obvious. Try to remember it this time.

Of course a city be bigger that the can. But in Ireland that is not the case. So Melbourne isn't relevant (Sydney is bigger btw).
If Cork was bigger than Dublin, it would have a biger airport. Did that really have to be pointed out.
Are you really suggesting that upgrading Dublin airport to meet demand, will contribute to the growth of Dublin. lol. You have that backwards.

our air transport market happens to be 90% centered in Dublin. 9 of our 10 eggs in 1 basket so to speak. an immoderate situation that rewards investors in the short term each time. but nobody else in the long term. Good idea up to a point, at ~35 million pax we're now past that point.

It's 85% Dublin because 85% of people choose to fly out of Dublin. You pretending that we are expanding Dublin and refusing to develop Shannon, Cork, Kerry. That is completely disingenuous, or perhaps simply uninformed.

my actual suggestion is no more growth in flight numbers for DUB. any new flights can go elsewhere in Ireland, demand for DUB or not. DUB, like the rest of the city/county/capital/region is full.

Flights are are scheduled based on demand. Blocking flights to DUB shouldn't result isn't empty seats and magical demand for Shannon.
Dublin is full? Too many Nigerians. I think you've highlighted your actual agenda there.

yet more flights is harmful to Dublin, harmful in noise and traffic which we can't support. harmful to regions which cant compete with the demand/population cycle.

Except that Dublin airport can support the initial increase to 36m. The local services have capacity, the roads have capacity. There are formal documents that support that.
In fact, Dublin has more latent capacity that Shannon (even though Shannon is at 40%).

govt have to intervene on this or it will just continue as the easier short term option with long term harm, same as with coal.

Also nonsense. This is not a short term plan. There's a 10 year plan and a 25 year plan. You're hairbrained idea is a 0 zero year plan. Falls down at the slightest scrutiny. As I've clearly outlined.

Yeah Right · 16-10-2025 09:29AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123908315#Comment_123908315

Not the food. They included the train ticket from the airport to central London in the price, as that's an extra expense incurred while travelling.

I'm saying, using that as the reason for choosing one mode of transport over another is stupid, when the 2nd mode has a lot of ancillary costs that could be factored in also. Like food. And pints. And entertainment for the kids on the ferry. And snacks for the train and…….

The reality is Dublin-London overland at €58 is quite comparable to the cheapest flights (you didn't include any bags for example)

A) no it isn't, in fact it is 50% more expensive than the cheapest flight at €39

B) the cheapest flight mentioned above is a RETURN flight. You are comparing a €39 flight with a €116 ferry and saying they're basically the same. They're not.

C) I've never checked bags when flying to the UK, even for a weekend, never mind a day trip

and that's silly - air needs to be made more expensive.

Says who? The person who thinks €39 is the same as €116? I think I'll take my financial advise from elsewhere, thanks.

Then of course Ryanair are liable to catch you in Michael O'Leary's algorithms which adds the price up there.

What?

Bottom line - rail v air for Dublin to London is comparable in price,

Wrong, it's triple the price……if you have to lie to make your point, maybe your point isn't worth making

maybe 8 hours v 5 hours,

Wrong again. Flying option is 4hrs, versus between 7-8hrs (sail & rail) or 10hrs+ (sail and bus). And that's excluding travel time to the airport/port.

and cuts down on emissions by 80-90%.

Correct. This means nothing to about 80% of the country though.

Again, if that's not a good trade off, I don't know what is.

That's not a good trade off at all. Taking twice as long and costing three times as much to save an unspecified number of kilos of GHGs is absolutely bonkers and would make most people recoil in horror. Only a simpleton would consider that a good deal. And that's before we even entertain a whole host of other things, like having to pay for accommodation because you've just spent the last 12hrs travelling. Whole lot easier to do a day trip by plane. Otherwise you'd be walking around London for 45 mins before you have to head home.

Hotblack Desiato · 16-10-2025 09:53AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123909263#Comment_123909263

Decentralisation actually started in the 1980s, moving medium or large and fairly self-contained "processing" units as a block, e.g. pensions to Letterkenny, Dept of Defence to Galway city, Collector General to Limerick city and VAT to Ennis, Patents Office to Kilkenny. This worked well, because it wasn't trying to be all things to all people.

The 2000s plan of scattering small units all over the place was nuts, but FF connected landowners and developers did well out of it. We've been paying the price for it ever since

Yes the M20 should have been finished 20 years ago, would have made a lot more sense than the M17/18 imo

Dublin's problems are due to decades of very poor (and very corrupt) planning, as well as a massive failure to provide it with the infrastructure that any city of its size needs. But they're far from as bad, or even insoluble, as some like to make out here

scottser · 16-10-2025 09:57AM

It stands to reason that Dublin Airport is at capacity so the DAA should seek to either expand the capacity at our regional airports or maybe repurpose Baldonnell for civilian use.

Podge_irl · 16-10-2025 10:05AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123909866#Comment_123909866

Dublin Airport is not at capacity.

Hotblack Desiato · 16-10-2025 10:06AM

Dublin Airport is nowhere near capacity in terms of runways, a few easy upgrades to the terminals, already in planning, will add capacity for millions of passengers a year, getting to 40 million a year or even slightly more is easy. In the long term the runways have the capacity to add a third terminal.

Baldonnel is entirely unsuitable for use as a civilian airport for a host of reasons I can't be bothered to go back into again to address a completely uninformed one liner drive-by post

How much more unused capacity at regional aiports do you think the taxpayer should be stumping up for? The only one which is actually near capacity is Cork and it's going to be expanded

Lillyfae · 16-10-2025 10:37AM

Ludicrous to suggest Baldonnel. Dublin doesn't need another airport. Ireland doesn't need another airport. It needs better motor and railway connectivity.

CardF · 16-10-2025 11:37AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123909201#Comment_123909201

we have established the demand. the numbers prove that.

there is strong want, and need, to come to ireland. this absolutely is dublin vs other irish airports.

more and more for DUB is our easy answer, our way to put off the problem til tomorrow. another factor in our imbalanced population distribution.

Part of the same approach that causes both urban sprawl and regional underdevelopment, urban congestion and rural dereliction, urban overdemand and rural underdemand for real estate, urban landlord gombeenism and rural unemployment and despair. There are many downsides which are less apparent and dont get mentioned, benefits yes, negatives never.

so stick it to the passengers, let dublin sell out all ~33 million seats, and thereafter they can take another irish airport or go whistle. some will walk others will have no choice. any loss is the lesser of two evils.

you wont be benefitting from increased seat sales in any case, theres little to nothing in more dublin flights for most of us.

CardF · 16-10-2025 11:40AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123909866#Comment_123909866

oh no dont do that, im on the southside. and i dont like noise overhead. i dont even like drones.

that kind of thing is for the northside.

CardF · 16-10-2025 11:55AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123909410#Comment_123909410

centralized by market forces. and yes it is.
'claiming that its not demand'. invention of your mind.
sydney reference. irrelevant. petty.
85% correction. pedantic.
racism reference. desperate reach. distraction.
ignored the noise issue completely, and no the roads dont have the capacity.
dublin airport might have capacity, dublin city doesnt.
iaa promises to ignore the cap next year.

Next.

thegetawaycar · 16-10-2025 11:58AM

I do, we should at the same time invest in Rail options to/from the airport and utilise it more. We're an island and depend on our air routes for connectivity.
If the airport is 24hr the Metro (which will never be built) becomes more valuable too and more public transport will hopefully go 24hr.

thenuisance · 16-10-2025 01:01PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123907414#Comment_123907414

Which is why I asked for the breakdown of the numbers into business/tourism/transfers and locals. Without that breakdown any potential downstream impacts can't be measured.

GSBellew · 16-10-2025 01:18PM

To answer the question, I would like it abolished.

Why?

Because it would be beneficial to have an increased number of flights into and out of our largest airport, having an artificial limit imposed on a major international airport on an Island is quite frankly ridiculous.

CardF · 16-10-2025 08:25PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123910482#Comment_123910482

yeah? is it going to benefit you in some way?

astrofool · 16-10-2025 09:19PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123910193#Comment_123910193

It's not our "easy answer" it's a fact of market demand, when Dublin was limited, the flights went to airports outside of Ireland.

The only way to move that demand away from Dublin is to have another Dublin elsewhere in the country to justify that demand (and Dublin would continue growing in the mean time and would need the cap raised anyway).

Pretending that moving flights to Shannon is a "hard answer" is nonsensical, it was tried and failed and cost the country while failing.

CardF · 16-10-2025 09:53PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911673#Comment_123911673

theres demand for drink at the offie at 3am. theres demand for cheap foreign cigarettes. theres demand for plenty of things that would make ultimately make life worse, i.e. the costs would outweigh the benefits. the benefits going to few, the costs to many.

DUB is a success. Misson accomplished, its achieved the goal, now at 33 million flights. Time for other places to succeed too. Lets not be a 1 trick pony country.

Who actually wants the Dublin Airport passenger cap abolished?

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