AIRPORT REPORT: DUBLIN
Different times Dublin Airport’s managing director, Vincent Harrison, talks to Joe Bates about a record breaking 2019, a long-awaited new runway, his gateway’s 80th birthday and returning to full operations after COVID-19.
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viation, the global economy and life maybe very much on hold for now due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is no doubting that when it is finally over, Dublin Airport (DUB), will be hoping to bounce back as soon as possible after one of the most successful years in its history. Indeed, a record 32.9 passengers (+4%) passed through Ireland’s gateway to the world last year and work started on its new North Runway, which operator, daa, has described as “the most important thing Ireland will build in a generation”. In the last 18 months, the airport has also opened a new transfer facility, transformed its retail/F&B offerings to provide passengers with more choice and a better sense of place of Ireland than ever before, and picked up an customer excellence award for being the joint best airport in Europe handling 25-40mppa in ACI’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) awards. Oh, and earlier this year it celebrated its 80th birthday, which it intends to mark throughout 2020, albeit in a more muted way given the impact of COVID-19.
Record breaking year The airport attributes its all-time traffic high of last year down to a combination of 25 new routes and services that included new long-haul routes to Calgary, Dallas/Fort Worth and Minneapolis-St Paul and new short-haul services to Bodrum, Kiev, Lourdes and Thessaloniki, plus capacity increases on 28 existing routes as airlines added flights to their schedules or operated services with larger aircraft. The extra services meant that an additional 1.4 million passengers travelled through DUB last year, including 2.2 million transfer
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AIRPORT WORLD/ISSUE 2, 2020
passengers, who helped cement the airport’s status as the fifth largest airport in Europe for transatlantic connectivity. “The connectivity provided by Dublin Airport is essential, as the Irish economy is one of the most open in the world,” states DUB’s managing director, Vincent Harrison. “Our economy depends on trade, exports, inbound tourism and foreign direct investment, and as a vital element of Irish national infrastructure, Dublin Airport will play a key role in helping the Irish economy to begin to chart a recovery after the current health crisis has passed.” Last year Dublin benefitted from a significant growth in transfer passengers. In fact, the number of passengers using the airport as a hub has more than quadrupled since 2013, the more recent arrivals benefitting from the 2018 opening of a dedicated transfer facility. The top five transfer routes handled at DUB in 2019 were Boston– Manchester; Chicago–Manchester; Boston–Edinburgh; Chicago–Rome; and Boston-Amsterdam. Harrison is, however, under no illusion that things will be very different this year for DUB and almost every other airport on the planet in terms of traffic trends. He says: “We started 2020 with an optimistic outlook as we were expecting to welcome 12 new routes, however, the impact of COVID-19 on the aviation industry globally has been catastrophic and that is now our biggest challenge.” For the record, the top five airlines and routes at DUB in 2019 were Ryanair, Aer Lingus, British Airways, Lufthansa and Emirates and London, Amsterdam, Manchester, New York and Paris.
