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A one-way flight from Dublin to London this Christmas could cost passengers up to €500 (£421) a seat, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has warned.
According to the boss of the budget airline, the rapid rise in airfares is due to the annual traffic cap of 32 million passengers at Dublin Airport that was introduced in 2007.
Prices for the flight path to London are predicted to be the most impacted this December.
Dublin Airport introduced a second runway in 2015, taking the airport’s traffic capacity to 60 million passengers.
Ryanair claims that the airline, alongside other carriers that serve Dublin, applied for 270,000 extra slots for flights this Christmas but was refused by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).
An additional 50,000 seats to and from Belfast have been added by the airline to make air travel more affordable for Ireland-bound passengers.
Michael O’Leary has urged prospective travellers returning to Dublin during the festive period to “book their flights early” as “cheap seats are selling out quickly”.
Mr O’Leary also criticised Irish transport minister Eamon Ryan for “failing” to act against the traffic cap to open up the aviation hub’s second runway.
The Ryanair boss said in a statement on 26 August: “Currently today in late Aug, our lowest fares from London to Dublin on Fri 20th, Sat 21st or Sun 22nd December are rapidly approaching €100 one-way due to this Government’s failure to allow airlines to run extra flights to/from Dublin this Christmas.
“We believe airfares to Dublin this Christmas will hit €500 one-way as Christmas approaches and reduced seat capacity fills, and therefore we urge passengers intending to travel home to family at Christmas to book their travel early and avoid what will be record-high airfares due to Eamon Ryan’s failure to scrap a 17-year-old outdated and irrelevant (road) traffic cap.”
The Independent has contacted the IAA for comment.
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