Construction BUSINESS

DAA has been given five more years to build its planned €320 million north runway at Dublin Airport. A 10-year planning permission for the runway project was granted in August 2007, but construction did not get under way due to the economic downturn and subsequent fall in passenger numbers.

Preliminary works began late last year and DAA (formerly known as Dublin Airport Authority) said it hopes to start work on the runway itself later this year and to have completed the project by 2020. Passenger volumes needed to reach 25 million to make the additional runway financially viable, DAA said, a figure which was not exceeded until the end of 2015.

In 2008, numbers stood at 23.4 million but fell dramatically to 18.4 million in 2010. Almost 28 million passengers passed through Dublin Airport last year, marking an increase of 11% in passenger numbers on the previous year. Of these, 24.3 million passengers took short-haul flights to and from the airport while 3.6 million were on long-haul flights.

Last April, the DAA announced that it intended to go ahead with the runway. However, planning permission for the project was due to expire in November of this year and the firm needed an extension of that time limit. Fingal County Council recently granted an extension of permission up to 2022.

“Dublin Airport’s current runway infrastructure is at capacity during the peak hours and this must be addressed to enable future growth. The north runway will significantly improve Ireland’s connectivity, which plays a critical role in growing passenger numbers and sustaining the future economic development of Ireland,” DAA chief executive Kevin Toland has said.