LONDON – Ryanair has accused the Irish DAA of increasing fares whilst passenger queues, causing some controversy in the lair of CEO Michael O’Leary.

Price hike

As the long rows keep staying, the airport of Dublin has decided to tackle the long rows by increasing the airport fares by 88%.

The Dublin Airport Authority has claimed that the increase in fares is because of the long queues, as over 1000 people have recently missed their flights by being unable to check in on Sunday.

However, Ryanair has become quite upset about that, saying that there was “no justification” for the “shocking price increase”. The price increase would be from €8.50 to €14.26 by 2026

Ryanair’s CEO, Eddie Wilson, said that the airport’s “extravagant” capital plan to increase the airport included “gold plated” and unnecessary structures including “tunnels under runways” that would hike costs for airlines and passengers.

“Dublin Airport has the facilities to grow traffic using the new second runway, but this growth can only be delivered with lower airport charges and lower airfares,” he said in a statement.

“The DAA has mismanaged the recovery from the Covid-19 crisis and are now seeking to jeopardize the future growth and development of Irish tourism with this price gouging application for an 88pc increase in airport charges, which it seeks to justify by proposing ludicrous spending on unnecessary ‘tunnels under runways’ which Dublin’s airlines and Dublin’s passengers don’t need, and can’t pay for.

“The DAA should instead concentrate on fixing recruitment to deliver an efficient customer service through security rather than dreaming up new charges for facilities that nobody wants and which damage tourism recovery.”

Ryanair is calling on Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe to intervene to stop the cost increase and prevent a “traffic collapse” at the airport.

Negative impact

Ryanair’s CEO has an extremely fair point on this matter, as increasing the fair at moments like these would not benefit the situation in the long run, as fewer people would be using Dublin’s airport and instead go to Cork, where the fairs and queues are still relatively low compared to Dublin.

The airport of Dublin had a long period between November of last year and February of this year to hire people, as the end of the pandemic was already in sight.

Even with all of these setbacks, the airport is planning to invest €2 billion to build a new runway and other investments.

It is simultaneously partially the fault of the airlines as well, as they could have seen this coming. The airlines could have hiked the prices up themselves to artificially reduce the demand for certain routes, as increasing the prices would make it less attractive for the average leisure passenger, who are very price-conscious.

While it may seem like a big scam, it is a very effective tactic to reduce and increase demand at will, and since the feeling to fly has risen sharply, many people have booked a flight.

Many airlines knew that the airports were understaffed, so they could have increased the price by enough to make it so unattractive that it would have temporarily helped relieve the pressure of the airports.