Passenger numbers jumped last week at Dublin Airport for the first time in months but DAA is still losing €700,000 a day and industrial relations challenges remain, its CEO has said.
Dalton Philips told staff that since the government announced that foreign travel would return in late July there was an increase in numbers – albeit off a very small base – passing through the airport.
“Already there has been a small bounce because of the travel restriction news and anecdotally, I am sure you are hearing stories of friends or family rushing to book flights,” he said.
The passenger traffic outlook for the past week had been for almost 11,000 passengers per day. Friday was predicted to have nearly 15,000 passengers. That was a rise from a daily average of 7,500 passengers.
“There is a real step up starting to happen. Clearly a long way from the 100,000 we would normally be doing at this time of year but increases from where we were only a few weeks ago,” said Philips.
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Despite the jump, numbers are still almost 90pc down on 2019 with less than 100 flights per day compared to almost 700 in 2019.
Philips said that DAA is “not out of the woods in terms of the financial impact this pandemic is having on our business”.
“We are still in a hugely difficult situation, losing some €700,000 every single day.”
The long term sustainability of the business depended on all staff accepting work practice change, he said.
“If not, the maths just simply don’t work,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are still some areas where we have not reached consensus on the introduction of new ways of working and in the case of our asset management team the matter was even referred to the Labour Court.”
Two weeks ago the Labour Court issued a recommendation that the union should accept the work practice changes in return for access to a voluntary severance scheme and full pay restoration for staff in the section, as has been the case in other sections that voted to accept the agreement.
“We now have written to these unions to advise them that we will accept this recommendation and I understand that the ballots on the courts recommendation will be taking place in the next two weeks,” he said.
“Look we have always been clear about the need for new ways of working and for us to look at alternative ways to make the necessary cost savings where new ways of working are not agreed. So we will respond with our next steps once we understand the union’s position.”
DAA figures showed that 26 airlines operated in and out of Dublin airport last week.
Ryanair carried 44pc of passengers over the seven days up until last weekend, while Aer Lingus carried 19pc.
The top three destinations for passengers using the airport were the UK at 24.7pc, the US at 12.3pc and Spain at 8.3pc.