The IAA issues draft decision on Dublin Airport’s Summer 2025 Capaci

Today (Thursday, 12 September 2024) the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) published its draft decision on Dublin Airport's Summer 2025 Capacity, proposing coordination parameters which will be used in the airport slot allocation process. The Summer 2025 scheduling season runs from 30 March to 25 October 2025.

The IAA is responsible for the implementation of the EU Airport Slot Regulation.1 The Slot Regulation aims to ensure that, where airport capacity is scarce, the maximum available capacity is identified for each scheduling season, used efficiently, and distributed in a fair and transparent way by means of the allocation of take-off and landing slots by an independent coordinator, according to rules set out in the Slot Regulation, and based on the capacity identified for the airport concerned. Capacity is declared to the detailed level of up to 10 minute intervals to ensure all capacity is maximised.

The IAA's role includes identifying and determining the capacity at Dublin Airport and setting the consequent parameters for slot allocation, and in doing so the IAA is required to take account of all relevant technical, operational and environmental constraints. These constraints include the capacity of runways, airspace capacity, availability of aircraft stands, various passenger processes such as check-in and security screening, and planning constraints imposed on daa by the planning authorities in the form of planning conditions.

In 2007, An Bord Pleanála imposed a planning condition on daa's development of Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport, which limits the combined capacity of Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport to 32 million passengers per annum. This planning condition remains in existence.

To take account of the capacity constraint represented by this planning condition, the IAA proposes to implement a seat capacity limit of 25.2 million seats for the Summer 2025 scheduling season. This is in line with the proposal outlined by daa, the operator of Dublin Airport, during the deliberations of the coordination committee, in which daa also stated that the IAA should have regard to the condition. The members of the coordination committee include Dublin Airport and the air carriers using Dublin Airport, and the committee is tasked by the Slot Regulation with providing proposals and/or advice to the IAA.

The IAA's proposal would make Summer 2025 the second scheduling season in which a seat cap to take account of the 32m passenger per annum planning condition set by planning authorities is in effect. For Winter 2024 (26 October 2024 to 29 March 2025) the seat cap is 14.4m. The proposal for Summer 2025 would result in a total seat capacity of 39.6m across the two seasons. The seat cap is greater than the passenger cap as it takes account of expected load factors (how many passengers are expected on each flight relative to the total number of seats on the aircraft), and an adjustment for transfer passengers.

The IAA anticipates that the demand for slots for the Summer 2025 scheduling season would significantly exceed the proposed seat cap. In line with the Slot Regulation, air carriers who have operated series of slots (5 weeks or longer) in the Summer 2024 season would be given priority, on initial coordination, in relation to those series for Summer 2025. However, the IAA anticipates that not all slot series from Summer 2024 would be capable of being accommodated within the proposed seat cap.

In addition, the IAA anticipates that, like Winter 2024, this proposal would result in very little, if any, available capacity for new slot requests, or for ad hoc slot requests, for passenger flights using the capacity of Terminal 1 or Terminal 2 during the Summer 2025 scheduling season. Such an outcome, and its implications for airlines, Dublin Airport and the travelling public flows as a consequence of the planning condition itself.

The role of the IAA does not encompass any power to amend or revoke planning conditions, or any decision to enforce or not enforce conditions, which are all matters to be determined by the planning authorities, such as Fingal County Council. In that regard, it is also not for the IAA to assess the merits or otherwise of the condition itself.

The IAA is holding a consultation on today's draft decision, and invites interested parties to make written submissions by email to consultation@iaa.ie by 26 September. The IAA will make its final decision on the Summer 2025 capacity in October.

The draft decision and related documents are available on the IAA's website: https://www.iaa.ie/commercial-aviation/economic-regulation/slot-allocation/documents---slots