DAA ‘ultimate’ plan is for 55mi passengers a year through Dublin Airport

Dublin Airport has long-term ambitions to grow its capacity to 55m passengers a year, according to documents filed with Fingal County Council. The airport operator, DAA, has filed a dossier of 12,000 pages responding to 85 areas of concern the council raised earlier this year regarding its plan to raise passenger capacity at the airport to 40m from its current cap of 32m and make major changes to various parts of the airport. The original planning application documentation ran to a further 7,000 pages. DAA is looking to have the council set aside a 32m limit on passenger numbers imposed in 2007 as a condition of permission to build a second runway at the airport. That runway came into use in 2022, triggering the cap. It said 31.9m people passed through the airport last year. It expects to breach the cap this year and says numbers passing through the airport could hit 35m in 2025. “The proposed development for which the applicant now seeks permission has been designed to ensure that it does not compromise the ability of the airport to expand to 55m passengers per annum throughput at some point in the future,” according to a report by Cork-based Coakley O’Neill Town Planning.<br/>