Ryanair has applied for a judicial review in the High Court to challenge a limit on night flights at Dublin Airport to 35,672 a year, but operator DAA will not join the proceedings.

The airline said the ruling by planning appeals board, An Coimisiún Pleanála, amounted to “an illegal second movements cap” at the facility.

An Coimisiún Pleanála said in July it would extend the hours the airport could from its new north runway to between 6am and midnight. Previously, there had been a ban on landing or taking off from that runway between 11pm and 7am.

The decision means the average number of flights allowed through the airport’s two runways between 11pm and 7am increased to 98 from 65 a day. However, this was made subject to an annual limit on night flights of 35,672.

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In a statement on Tuesday, Ryanair said the restrictions imposed in July “artificially limit night movements”, and block early morning arrivals, which it described as “vital for transatlantic landings” between 5am and 7am.

It said An Coimisiún Pleanála had failed to explain why it overruled the specialist airport noise regulator, Anca, which had rejected a movement cap in favour of a night-time noise quota system.

“Sadly, Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien has continued to sit on his hands doing nothing to scrap the 2007 [passenger] cap, despite the Programme for Government pledging to abolish it as soon as possible.”

DAA said it noted Ryanair’s move, but had taken “the difficult decision” not to pursue judicial review proceedings even though the An Coimisiún Pleanála restrictions “will limit the airport’s growth and impact Ireland’s strategic connectivity as an island nation, with negative implications for tourism, FDI and jobs”.

“Taking a judicial review … would open the airport to further prolonged uncertainty and hamper our ability to progress our application to lift the airport passenger cap through the planning system.”

DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs described the situation for the operator as being “stuck between a rock and a hard place”, but said tackling the issue would have to wait.

“We urgently need to get building the new piers and stands needed for Dublin Airport to manage 40 million passengers a year but we can’t do this until our infrastructure application gets approved,” he said.

The Department of Transport and Fingal County Council did not respond to requests for comment.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “These two artificial caps at Dublin Airport are unlawful. They are in breach the EU’s fundamental right to freedom of movement and they are also in breach of the EU-US “open skies” flight agreement.

“Any competent Government would by now have already scrapped the original 32 million traffic cap at Dublin Airport, given that the January 2025 Government programme promised to do so as soon as possible.

“Not alone has transport minister Darragh O’Brien done nothing for nine months, but now the incompetent bureaucrats at An Coimisiún Pleanála have imposed a second illegal cap which limits early morning arrivals between 5am to 7am, when most transatlantic flights arrive in Dublin.”

Mr O’Leary said the night flying restrictions would “damage existing transatlantic flights and shut off long haul traffic growth in Dublin, at a time when visitor numbers to Ireland are declining”.

He added the airline “has no choice” but to seek a judicial review of “this latest unlawful planning stupidity”.