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by TOM McENANEY - Irish Independent 26 Oct 2006 AS planing officials in one part of Dublin gave the go ahead for Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) to build a new terminal, a conference in another part of the city was discussing the wider airport needs of the capital. Aside from the DAA itself, the speakers included such luminaries as Dermot Mannion, the chief executive of Aer Lingus, and Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, who took time off from their takeover battle to express their views on a subject close to their hearts - and balance sheets. As speaker after speaker was invited to take questions, Michael Harley, a representative of UPROAR, a local group which has fought a tenacious and very professional battle against the second terminal, put up his hand. Each of the local speakers and a few of the international guests were asked if it would not make sense for Dublin to build a second airport. On the face of it the logic of a second airport is inescapable. Dublin Airport is bursting to the seams. Last year Dublin Airport saw 18.4m passengers traipse across its concourse. Last Christmas Ryanair ended a five-year stand-off with the airport during it which it refused to route any significant expansion through Dublin. Largely because of this development, passenger numbers at Dublin airport are expected to reach 21.5m. By 2010, when the new terminal is due to be finished the annual passenger numbers are expected to be in the region of 26m.Dublin is one of the few capital cities in Europe with only one commercial airport. Belfast, which is a fraction of Dublin's size, has two, Belfast International and the George Best City Airport. Why not build a second airport for Dublin? The common wisdom is that it could be put on a piece of bog somewhere just outside the city. Why then did speaker after speaker at yesterday's conference reject the idea of a second airport? The reasons are myriad. In the first instance many of the sites which would seem to make sense are, in fact, unsuitable. Many of the open bog sites which have been identified look fine on a clear day, or even a rainy one, but suffer from fog, which is a major no-no for people looking at airport sites. But the real reason that both Ryanair and Aer Lingus, who between them fly about 80pc of the passengers going through Dublin, reject the idea of a second airport, has to do with scale. Comparing Dublin to other European capitals is a bit of a red herring. The economic viability of an airport has nothing to do with whether the city it serves is the seat of government. It has to do with the catchment area. Bristol has only one airport but has a catchment of 10m people. Manchester has a similar story to tell. This would mean nothing if there were land-capacity problem at Dublin Airport. But, thanks to the foresight of the planners who put together the Dublin Airport site, it has the capacity to look after as many as 60m passengers a year. This may not please local residents, who have to deal with the traffic this causes, not to mention the overflights, but it is nonetheless a fact. Traffic out of Dublin will never reach those levels. So the government has two choices: Expand an existing airport which has plenty of capacity to take it or take on the residents of another part of the city and a possible 25-year battle to build another airport. Then convince airlines to fly from there. Any of the experts at yesterday's conference would tell you that this is why the idea of a second airport will never fly. |
