IT SEEMS a funny kind of analysis that leads to a decision to increase passenger charges at a time when consumer demand for air travel is at its lowest ebb in years.
Yet that is what users of Dublin airport face following aviation regulator Cathal Guiomard’s “draft determination” to allow a 13 per cent or 96c rise in the charge on each leg of a journey next year.
It will rise again in 2011 once the costs of terminal two (T2) can be worked out. Dublin airport carried about 23 million passengers last year, a figure that it is unlikely to match until 2014, according to the regulator’s analysis.
It begs the question about the timing of T2. The decision to build it was made when the economy was going gangbusters and the airport needed a facelift.
Ryanair believes it to be a white elephant. Michael O’Leary has said Ryanair passengers will not be paying for the terminal, which he believes is a waste of money.
But the regulator has decided that a flat passenger charge will apply to both terminals. Unless he has a change of heart by the time his final decision is issued in October, it is probably a safe bet that this will end up in the Four Courts and possibly Europe.
