Dublin Airport exceeded 32m terminals passenger cap in December
Dublin Airport’s 11-month growth run ended in December. While the airport welcomed 2.29m passengers through its terminals, this was a 1% decline versus December 2023, in contrast to the previous 11 months which all saw increases. The busiest day was Sunday, December 29, when 98k passengers went through the terminals, a 4% decline versus the same day in 2023. The reductions reflect the impact of the winter seat cap parameter put in place by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) to address Dublin Airport’s 32m planning cap. This meant airlines could not add ad hoc or charter flights during December as they would have previously.
Overall, 2024 was a year of growth despite daa’s effort to dampen demand, with a total of 33.3m passengers through the terminals, a 4% increase on 2023 numbers. Including connecting and other passengers, the total number of passengers using Dublin Airport in 2024 was 34.6m (+3.3% vs 2023). On 171 days of 2024, the airport managed more than 100k passengers a day, demonstrating its operational capacity to manage 36m passengers a year. Given the strong demand for travel in and out of Dublin Airport, daa estimates that overall numbers would have been even higher had it not been for the terminals passenger cap and daa’s initiatives to dampen demand to comply with planning.
Looking to 2025, Ireland is the only country among the top 20 European countries for air travel to show a decline in scheduled seat capacity in Q1 2025 vs Q1 2024, according to industry data**. Ireland is predicted to decline 3.3% in contrast to countries like the UK (+3.9%), Germany (+4.7%), France (7.1%) and Spain (8.1%). This is due to the IAA winter seat cap parameter at Dublin Airport, which continues until the end of March, as well as decisions by airlines to cut some regular routes. However, as the Irish High Court has placed a stay on the seat cap element of the IAA’s summer slots decision pending clarity from the European Court of Justice, the IAA is now in a position to grant additional slots to airlines for summer 2025.
On December 20, daa lodged a ‘no build’ Operational Application (OA) with Fingal County Council (FCC) seeking permission to lift the passenger cap to 36m a year. As the application does not seek permission to build any infrastructure, daa hopes that it can move swiftly through the planning system and provide a short-term solution to the terminals cap impasse impacting Ireland’s connectivity, tourism and economy.
The OA is additional to daa’s Infrastructure Application (IA) to increase the cap to 40m a year and enable €2.4bn of investment in critical infrastructure and sustainability improvements at Dublin Airport. This was lodged on December 15, 2023.
Commenting on the financial performance of daa in 2024, Peter Dunne, daa CFO, said: “daa has delivered a strong second half financial performance, building on the solid results reported for the first half across all areas of the business including our Dublin and Cork airports and our international businesses, ARI and daa International. We expect full year revenue for the Group to be up year-on-year by circa 8% at in excess of €1.1 billion. This strong financial performance has enabled continued investment in critical long-term capital projects, with a capital spend across the group for 2024 of circa €230 million, while at the same time reducing our net debt position at year end to less than €700 million. We will publish our full year 2024 results on 30 April 2025 and look forward to sharing more details then.”