The honeymoon could be over very soon.

Ryanair threatens legal action over charges - RTÉ News

Transport Minister told regulator to allow charges increase by 22% between 2015-2019 and FR taking legal action if its not withdrawn. Final ruling on charges not until next Month. Most other airlines want money spend on T1 to be developed.

"Most airlines". I think you can safely exclude AL, Emirates, Etihad and the US carriers. Quite possibly a minority of airlines using Dublin want money spent to upgrade their terminal but don't want to foot the bill. What's the FR success rate in the courts running at these days?

AA/US, BA, BE, DY (and L/H leg), TK, WX, LH, EY and LX.

Of course Aer Lingus don't want it as everybody has paid for their terminal.

Pier 3 flexibility is a big one which is not included and repeated calls by airlines for it.

Sorry but am I missing something here? Whats the point of having a regulator if a government minister, who is barely a wet week in office can overrule them anyway?

And 22% is quite a big jump to be fair. Kind of negates some of the benefits of getting rid of the travel tax imo. Its just going into the pockets of the DAA, rather than the revenue, and will be passed on to Joe Soap as usual

Vlid

The consumer wont benefit if they are cut. We have not benefitted from the travel tax cut. The last period saw a 40% increase so not as bad. Most likely out come will probably be a 10% to keep everybody happy.

You know we are footing the bill for SNN, that 100 million would go along way offsetting the increase.

Any answer on what the purpose of the regulator is if Pascal can come along and over rule them?

Seems others are asking the same question

Aer Lingus calls for end to political interference

Is this a massive sentence or what ... Had to think about this a bit ...

On the face of it, yes. It, basically, says that the Regulator can :mad: off and the DAA can charge what they like for whatever they want to do. When did the Irish Government ever have an aviation policy? Is this written down somewhere that we can read?

Good to see FR and EI united on this one.

The only government policy used to be " Protect Shannon at all costs", now I don't know what it is

Dept. of Transport and Sport website

A NATIONAL AVIATION POLICY FOR IRELAND

Here is the new policy.

Thanks Confused.

That explains the infrastructure projects being spoken of

Remember the lower charges go the worse off EI will be as FR will be able to cut costs even more and widen the gap while EI are always trying to drive up yield. EI have done well over the last few years while FR were kept at bay. They are feeling the pinch already especially this coming winter.

I know there is other reasons for EI doing well but their SH operation annually does not make major profit and with increased presence from FR it wont help as EI are on higher chargers as it is.

I'm astounded by what I read........

Dublin is by far the largest Airport in EI's airports served therefore any reduction in charges will have a very substantial immediate benefit to their profitabily and bottom line, increase likewise will have a significant impact as they need to increase fares to cover.

If EI fly 3 million pax from Dublin and an increase of €5, it means they have to try and recover that from Pax, IF they can, if not they in the hole for €15 Million per year. That would be on 30% of their total passengers numbers. So cost €1.5 per passenger spread through all passengers.

IF FR fly 3 million from Dublin and can't increase fares, the same costs apply, however they can spread that €15 million over 84 Million passengers, or 3.5% of their total passengers. So cost €0.17 per passenger.

I doubt EI management seeing their costs go up 22% feel that they will be way better off because Ryanair don't get a benefit.

The Minister is elected - the Regulator is appointed to carry out Govt policy - same in every country

Nope

The Minister is appointed and in actual fact he doesn't even need to be an elected member of Irish Parliment. He can be appointed by Irish Prime Minister to Irish Senate.

Conversely, if FR slash services as a result of increased charges (not an option for EI), that would have an upside for EI in terms of competitive pressures.

Sounds like neither EI nor FR will have much clout here ...

and DAA would then claim we need to increase charges yet again as fewer passengers

I don't think this adequately explains the position; it's extremely rare for a Senator, let alone an appointed Senator, to serve as a Minister. And it's irrelevant in the current context.

The more apt observation is that aviation policy is set collectively by Government. In this instance, after many years of (as another poster said) protecting Shannon at all costs, policy is now promoting the longer-term development of Dublin in the context of the national economy. Even at that, the policy document is peppered with the superfluous addition of "and Shannon" to many statements that really only apply to Dublin.

But, at least, the objective of the policy is reasonably clear.

The Regulator seems to be just assessing the short-term commercial interests of EI and FR. This is a good political intervention, the kind that rarely happens.

I don't understand your logic. Abolition of airport duty = FR introduces more flights/pax, EI to a lesser extent. If the duty is replaced by punitive DAA charges then FR/EI = fewer flights/pax. FR will be seriously :mad: off having kept their side of the bargain. They should have known better than to trust any politicians and, in particular, the current lot who have reneged on more promises than the 10 previous administrations.