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Ryanair is demanding that Dublin airport collect parking charges on planes landed there due to the Covid-19 crisis.
Published figures indicate that the airline pays € 180 per day to maintain each of the 33 vessels parked at Dublin airport, a total of € 5,940.
Eddie Wilson, CEO of Ryanair Designated Activity Company, the largest division within the group of Irish airlines, demanded that the government ensure that the owner of Dublin airport, the state-owned company DAA, cancel these charges for all airlines. .
“It is wrong that Dublin State Airport should benefit from customers whose planes have been punished by government travel bans,” argued Wilson.
A Dublin airport spokesman said Ryanair’s claims were unsubstantiated. He argued that the company had taken many steps to help airlines despite the challenges its business poses from the loss of 99 percent of its passenger traffic.
“Dublin airport is giving a 93 percent discount on parking charges for narrow-body aircraft such as those operated by Ryanair,” he added.
“Those aircraft are stationed in a secure location, offering Ryanair personnel easy access to their aircraft when necessary.”
The Dublin airport spokesman said it had cut runway charges in half for all cargo flights.
While travel restrictions have largely stranded airline passenger fleets, the Republic’s airports remain open for cargo and other necessary flights.
Engineer licenses
Meanwhile, Brexit sparked an increase in the number of British aircraft engineers seeking licenses from the state’s air travel safety regulator, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).
According to the regulator’s annual report, the number of engineer licenses it issued grew 42.1 percent to more than 2,500 last year.
IAA Chief Executive Peter Kearney said in the report that while not all of this can be attributed to Brexit, the UK’s decision to leave the EU was “certainly a significant contributor to the increase.”
An Irish aircraft engineer’s license allows the holder to work in all EU countries, or to work on registered vessels within the block, which have a common air travel safety regime.
British engineers began seeking IAA licenses in 2019 as they feared that UK-issued permits would no longer qualify them to work on EU-registered vessels after Brexit.
“The Brexit implications continued to generate increased requests for the IAA in 2019 from UK-based individuals and organizations (crew and engineer licenses) and operations (maintenance and air operations),” said Kearney.
Income
The IAA governs security, air traffic control, navigation through Irish airspace and, along with its British equivalent, in a large area of the North Atlantic. The authority earns revenue by charging airlines for these services.
The authority’s annual report shows that net assets fell nearly 21 million euros last year to 215.6 million euros, mainly due to an increase of 89.1 million euros in the regulator’s pension liabilities. Total pension liabilities at the end of the year amounted to 698.5 million euros.
During the year, the IAA paid € 19.5 million in dividends to the State, its shareholder. This is made up of a payment of € 7.5 million and a special dividend of € 12 million agreed with the Government.
Profit before tax fell 14% last year to € 32.8 million from € 37.8 million in 2018. This was primarily due to a drop in interest payments to € 13.3 million in 2019 from € 18.9 million in 2018. Billing it fell to € 197 million from € 199 million.
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