{"id":10389,"date":"2025-09-09T17:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/10389\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T17:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:50:07","slug":"ryanair-applies-for-judicial-review-of-night-flights-ruling-at-dublin-airport-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/10389\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryanair applies for judicial review of night flights ruling at Dublin Airport \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryanair<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

The airline said the ruling by planning appeals board, An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la, amounted to \u201can illegal second movements cap\u201d at the facility.<\/p>\n

An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la 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.<\/p>\n

The decision means the average number of flights allowed through the airport\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ryanair adds 600,000 seats to Irish winter scheduleOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In a statement on Tuesday, Ryanair said the restrictions imposed in July \u201cartificially limit night movements\u201d, and block early morning arrivals, which it described as \u201cvital for transatlantic landings\u201d between 5am and 7am. <\/p>\n

It said An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSadly, Transport Minister Darragh O\u2019Brien 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

DAA said it noted Ryanair\u2019s move, but had taken \u201cthe difficult decision\u201d not to pursue judicial review proceedings even though the An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la restrictions \u201cwill limit the airport\u2019s growth and impact Ireland\u2019s strategic connectivity as an island nation, with negative implications for tourism, FDI and jobs\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking a judicial review \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs described the situation for the operator as being \u201cstuck between a rock and a hard place\u201d, but said tackling the issue would have to wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urgently need to get building the new piers and stands needed for Dublin Airport to manage 40 million passengers a year but we can\u2019t do this until our infrastructure application gets approved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Department of Transport and Fingal County Council did not respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n

Ryanair chief executive Michael O\u2019Leary said: \u201cThese two artificial caps at Dublin Airport are unlawful. They are in breach the EU\u2019s fundamental right to freedom of movement and they are also in breach of the EU-US \u201copen skies\u201d flight agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cNot alone has transport minister Darragh O\u2019Brien done nothing for nine months, but now the incompetent bureaucrats at An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la have imposed a second illegal cap which limits early morning arrivals between 5am to 7am, when most transatlantic flights arrive in Dublin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Leary said the night flying restrictions would \u201cdamage existing transatlantic flights and shut off long haul traffic growth in Dublin, at a time when visitor numbers to Ireland are declining\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added the airline \u201chas no choice\u201d but to seek a judicial review of \u201cthis latest unlawful planning stupidity\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryanair has applied for a judicial review in the High Court to challenge a limit on night flights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[75,72,10725,61,60,10726,1899],"class_list":["post-10389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-an-coimisiun-pleanala","tag-business","tag-daa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michael-oleary","tag-ryanair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}