I am sure it can be sorted mid-term if not short-term.

The cap was imposed by Fingal County Council as a condition for building T2. T2 at the time was widely regarded as a white elephant and the 32 million cap was probably thought to be pie-in-the-sky. Now we have both terminals bursting at the seams with no signs of demand easing as the Irish economy goes from strength to strength and increased opportunities from a second, longer runway.

I also seem to remember EI was the darling of IAG in the past when it had highest ROI. It was brought up lean, having FR competing in its backyard. What has changed? Have high Irish salaries started to take an effect?

There are the options to grow Aer Lingus UK in Manchester or even in Belfast (only 90 mins from DUB by motorway) or to grow the other Irish ports in ORK, SNN and NOC. EI needs to preserve the capacity to bounce back if the cap is lifted in DUB.

I think it was mainly Ryanair that thought T2 would be a white elephant, O'Leary was vocal about it constantly in the media when it was being built, from memory.

EI had the highest ROI before the pandemic, however I think that may have been due to a lack of capital spending around the airline, from what I've heard. I have nothing to back that up though!

Once again. The cap had to do with car traffic not air traffic. And it was O�Leary that was
the loudest voice against it. And he was wrong. But the passenger cap was
imposed as a condition for reasons that no longer are an issue. It should be lifted. As soon as possible.

Suggesting they other airports can benefit from this is pie in the sky.

This is the silliest thing I heard in a long time. Surely the airport could have enhanced public transport options (e.g. buses require no infrastructure investment) and mandate that passengers take public transport or pay a hefty price tag for driving into the airport.

You can�t just mandate public transport only options. No airport in the world does that as far as I know. Certainly no airport without a rail link. How are you going to get between 50000 and 90000 per day in and out of the airport on buses and taxis only?.

The solution is simple. The problem that led to the cap no longer exists. So just lift the cap. But like everything in Ireland it�ll take years.

High Court ruling expected at 2pm, that will be interesting

I've seen it claimed that there are enough seats on scheduled bus services to/from Dublin airport to accommodate every single passenger currently using the airport which if true destroys the planning restrictions

High Court pauses Dublin Airport summer passenger cap to prevent �immediate, serious� consequences

https://www.independent.ie/business/...176300597.html

The number of passenger seats available on aircraft using Dublin Airport next summer will not now be cut, after the High Court granted a stay on a decision by the aviation regulator to cap the number of take-off and landing slots during the busy peak season.

Airlines Ryanair and Aer Lingus, along with an organisation representing a number of US airlines, Airlines For America (A4A), had sought for the Irish Aviation Authority's (IAA) decision to be paused pending the outcome of judicial review proceedings they are bringing in relation to it.

At a hearing of the stay application on Friday, Aer Lingus told the court that it could lose 362,000 seats and �84m in revenue next year and as much as �130m the following year if the IAA's winter and summer cap on seat numbers remains

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/202...-seats-ruling/

Even that is true neither the DAA nor the airlines would want every passenger to travel to/from Dublin airport on public transport. The DAA make millions from car parking charges and the airlines that bring the millions of passenger to/from the airport argue that because many of those passengers are spending money in DAA car parks that they should receive more favourable terms with the DAA in airport charges. This is why O'Leary was opposed from year dot to a rail link to Dublin airport as it might weaken their hand when negotiating airport charges.

In any case, the cap has already been breached and the problems that the cap was intended to protect us from does not exist due to infrastructure upgrades in the meantime so it serves little or no purpose anymore.

Agreed. The other thing with this is that transfer passengers count - people who never see outside of the airport terminal.

Anyway, good to see some sanity prevail around this, as it was truly going to hamper the entire country.

There was just over a million connecting passengers last year and if they brought back DUB-ORK route there would be a few more

Yes please!

That's absolutely bonkers.