CHRISTMAS air fares from London to Dublin are heading for €500 - ONE WAY. Ryanair has warned that festive fares will go “through the roof” amid an ongoing row over passenger caps at Ireland’s main airport. It said the “artificial” restriction, which sees seat numbers divided up between airlines, “risks driving up prices of flights to the levels last seen in the 1980s.
” The airline said for the first time this winter it faces not being able to provide more than one million seats at peak periods and for special events. The airline’s CEO Eddie Wilson said it would have normally added 300,000 additional seats between Dublin and London over the Christmas period, but cannot do that now. He believes this could lead to one-way fares on that route around the festive period reaching up to €500.
Ryanair’s complaint follows the Irish Aviation Authority’s confirmation it will, for the first time, limit winter traffic at Dublin Airport . The seasonal maximum has been set at 14.4 million passengers as part of a 32 million annual total allowed.
Last year, just over 31.9 million passengers used the two terminals, just shy of the cap limit. Eddie Wilson said: “This artificial cap is now starting to bite with a ban on additional extra flights that are required to meet customer demand.
” He added that the “enforced reduction in seats will only lead to consumers having to pay higher air fares and may well result in the return of pricing that was last seen in the 1980s.