Time to push the throttle at Dublin Airport!
In a letter to An Bord Pleanála the CEO of daa, Kenny Jacobs, has urged the appeals board to make a decision as soon as possible.
“Maximising the potential of this important piece of strategic infrastructure is now essential,” he said.
Maybe Kenny Jacobs should explain why our key national airport's runways are being operated at 50% of capacity today?
No! It’s nothing to do with cranky neighbours or planning permission appeals or An Bord Pleanala dragging their feet. Dublin Airport could operate 50% more departures per hour today with the existing procedures, the existing taxiways and the existing runway equipment. They could even get a 100% increase (double capacity) by fixing the flawed departure procedures. So why are they running the airport at half throttle?
DAA’s stock answer to all things flight path or aerodrome operations is “we’ve devolved responsibility for that to AirNav”. However, daa is officially the Aerodrome Operator and while they can hire a sub-contractor (AirNav) the main contractor remains responsible for performing the function. If daa hired a contractor to build a new terminal, how would they react to being told “we’ve devolved responsibility for your burst pipe to the plumbing subbie, so it’s nothing to do with us!”?
Given near 20 years to plan (since 2004 when AirNav was IAA-ANSP) and 6 years notice from the date they started building the runway in 2016 to the date it opened in 2022, no one did the work required to get ready to actually operate it. In order to double the departure rate they need to hire and train new Air Traffic Controllers. According to media reports they don’t have enough controllers to operate even at current levels without hundreds of days of overtime each month. A prudently managed operator would have completed this no later 2020 for a 2022 runway opening. The flight path procedures should have been completed, approved and training materials produced at least a year before the runway went operational; the procedures were still changing to correct errors, 6 months after it opened!
According to official aviation publication AIP SUP: 018/2022, Dual Departure is supposed to be already up and running!
Stage 3: Planned for March 2023
•It is planned to commence fully integrated parallel runway operations
•This will include Dual Departure operations from Runways 28R and 28L
But then something went wrong …
19 Oct 2023: AIP SUPPLEMENT 018/22 RELATING TO DUBLIN AIRPORT (EIDW) NEW RUNWAY 10L/28R PLANNED OPERATIONAL STAGES, CANCELLED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT.
DAA has zero planning restrictions on number of flights between 0700 and 2300 daily. Management didn’t properly prepare and now the only thing causing the delay in doubling the capacity of Dublin Airport is daa and AirNav’s inability to operate the aerodrome effectively.
How to double the capacity?
Based on actual aircraft transponder data, Dublin Airport has 30 departures/hour from 0600 to 0900. Remember before the north runway opened, aircraft still used to take off in the mornings while others landed on the same runway in between departures. This could still be done, but they don’t have enough Air Traffic Controllers to begin.
TW: Maths, don’t panic!
30/hour from the north runway and let’s be conservative
15/hour from the south runway
That’s not double, it’s only 50% more! Yes, and this much could have begun some morning in March 2023 at 0700 without any change in planning restrictions or change in procedures, if suitably trained ATC staff were available.
Heathrow is able to launch aircraft every 60 seconds during their busiest periods. They have carefully designed Instrument Flight Procedures for this purpose; that’s why it’s sensible to design the procedures before you design the runway and taxiways that serve it. Design first, then pour the concrete! Dublin Airport should be capable of operating as follows from 0700 for the morning rush if they improve the departure procedures:
40/hour from the north runway (every 90 seconds on average)
20/hour from the south runway interspersed with arrivals
= 60/hour: Double the present rate.
So where's the economic impact analysis of this failure?
RTE: “Warning economy will lost [sic] out on €262m next year if runway restrictions at Dublin airport not removed”
RTE, the national broadcaster hits the web with daa warnings of the dreadful economic cost of not removing the restrictions on the €320m North Runway. Of course no mention of daa’s failure to operate the asset above 50% of capacity. Why do they need the restrictions lifted when today they are not running at anything close to capacity when unrestricted from 0700? Why are journalists not asking such questions rather than publishing daa content as a story?
What's really going on?
Why then does Dublin Airport need unlimited night flights? Why do they need to start unlimited daytime operations at 0600 and remain unlimited up to midnight? The answer to this is also short: Airline Profits.
Pat Kenny was told in August that the early flights cannot be moved to after 0700 because the airport is already at maximum capacity at that time. As discussed above, this is simply not the case. So why the fight for early departures given it is nothing to do with airport capacity? If the airport could launch 100 aircraft/hour from 0700-0900 the airlines would still want to start at 0600, even earlier if they can get away with it. The reason is they want to add 1 extra flight per day per aircraft.
Ryanair and to a lesser extent Aer Lingus operate point-to-point flights. On any given day, an aircraft leaving Dublin may operate say 5 flights to different airports around Europe and finish up back in Dublin. If they can get it out 60 minutes earlier in the morning and back 60 minutes later at night, that will be enough to go from 5 flights to 6 in the day. If only 5 aircraft in the fleet manage this, and it would be more, it is effectively like getting an extra $100 million Boeing 737 for free! From a business perspective this is a great idea.
The problem is it’s not for free; someone else pays! There is a cost to the people who live near the airport and others who live further away but under the flight path. Being awakened at 0530 by aircraft noise is just not right, especially for those who live under the illegal flight paths presently in operation. People’s health and welfare are destroyed and their property values decreased. Airline companies of course, don’t care who pays the price as long as their profits increase.
30,000 people may be hurt, some of them will have their mental health destroyed, but that’s a sacrifice the airlines and daa are willing for them to make!
So this whole fiasco: fighting restrictions, the relevant action, An Bord Pleanala; it’s nothing to do with Dublin Airport needing capacity. If there is €262 million of damage being done to the economy as RTE claims, it’s being done by daa and AirNav’s failure to operate the asset they have at anything like its actual capacity.