DAA outlines future plans for Dublin Airport

BY JOHN MANNING - Fingal Independent 30 Aug 06

The future plans for Dublin Airport and how the facility will look 10 years from now have just been outlined.

Ciaran Scanlon, programme manager with the Dublin Airport Authority presented the DAA's plans for the airport's immediate and longer term future.

Mr Scanlon said the DAA had embarked on a massive €1.2 billion redevelopment programme which would deliver 135 new projects over the next five to six years.

The headline grabbers are the new Pier D facilities, the second terminal or 'T2' project and the proposed new parallel runway but more than 130 other development projects are under way at the airport.

The blueprint for the new developments were set down in the Aer Rianta masterplan for Dublin Airport which was re-endorsed when the company changed its name to the Dublin Airport Authority in 2004.

When the all the projects in the current programme are delivered, Dublin Airport will have increased its capacity to some 55 million passengers per year with 35 million accommodated on the current eastern side of the campus and another 20 million on a new, western campus.

Capacity is becoming a huge issue for Dublin Airport and passenger numbers are continuing to grow at the airport by an average of 1.5 million extra passengers per year.

The prediction for this year stands at 21.5 million passengers and Mr Scanlon told an audience of invited guests at the Clarion Hotel at Dublin Airport that 'huge growth is projected' for the coming years.

Setting out the schedule for the delivery of its major projects, Mr Scanlon said the DAA hoped to have Pier D operational by October, 2007 and Terminal 2 by October of 2009.

The construction of a ground transportation area for the promised Metro North is also planned and Mr Scanlon said the DAA is confident they can deliver all these major projects.

According to Mr Scanlon, the company was also making every effort to consult and involve all of its stakeholders in the programme of development from the businesses on campus, to its neighbours.

He said: 'We needed to bring not only the general public but the business community on the campus and businesses around the campus with us on this venture and we acknowledged that we had to take an active role in monitoring people's concerns.'