Ryanair call for urgent action at Dublin airport

As the deadline of April 1st approaches for the implementation of the €10 travel tax Ryanair's calls to the Irish government to scrap the plan are reaching crescendo point.  The latest call comes as the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) issued the February traffic figures for Dublin airport which show a 12% YoY decline for the month. In February 2009, 1.4m passengers passed through the airport, some 200,000 less than in the same period last year.

The airline further called for a 30% reduction in the airport passenger handling fee and for the Commissioner for Aviation Regulation Cathal Guiomard to step down.

In the UK the airline made a similar call on the government to scrap the £10 passenger tax, claiming that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has failed passengers interests in favour of the airports by rubber stamping inflation busting price increases at London's airports. 

Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary said that “Harry Bush and his friends in the CAA wouldn’t recognise a passenger if he jumped up and bit them. Having proven to be an inept and incompetent regulator, the CAA should now be removed from regulation altogether and allow competing airports to deliver the improved facilities and lower costs where Harry Bush and the CAA have repeatedly failed”.