DAA and Ryanair to announce passenger deal

The Dublin Airport Authority and Ryanair are likely to announce the latest and biggest in a series of deals today stemming from the airline's pledge to boost passenger numbers in the Republic by one million.

Ryanair last month said it would expand services in the Republic and increase passenger numbers in response to the Government’s decision to drop the €3 a head travel tax from next April.

The agreement it is likely to announce with the DAA – the State company that owns Dublin and Cork airports – is likely to involve numbers of between 600,000 and 700,000. Ryanair already has completed an agreement with Shannon Airport that should add 300,000 passengers and one with Knock involving 80,000.

The airline says independent measures show that every 1,000 extra passengers travelling through an airport generate one new job, implying that one million will give rise to 1,000 extra posts.

Today’s announcement is likely to be seen as marking a thawing of relations between the airline and the authority, which has drawn stinging criticism from Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary in the past for its charges and its decision to add a second terminal.

Meanwhile, the DAA met representatives of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and unions representing its staff to discuss difficulties finding a means to plug the €780 million deficit in a pension fund operated jointly by the airport company and Aer Lingus.

The unions asked the company to release a lump sum of €53 million that the Labour Court recommended that it put into a new scheme in a series of proposals published last May.

The unions also want the money that members are paying into the old plan, the

Irish Airlines

Superannuation Scheme (IASS), to be diverted to the new fund.

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A contractor providing ground handling services to Ryanair at Dublin Airport laid off 38 workers as the airline pared back operations at the beginning of the winter season this month.

Ryanair expects to earn less revenues from ticket sales this winter and has lowered its estimate of the number of passengers it expects to fly over the course of its financial year to 81 million from 81.5 million.