The High Court will rule next week on an application from a number of airlines for a stay on a decision by the aviation regulator restricting the number of airline slots available at Dublin Airport next summer.
Mr Justice Barry O'Donnell said he would provide his ruling on Monday afternoon in relation to the case being brought by Ryanair, Aer Lingus and an organisation representing several US based airlines, Airlines For America (A4A).
The airlines are seeking a stay on the implementation of the Irish Aviation Authority’s (IAA) decision last month to restrict the number of seats on aircraft arriving at and leaving the airport during the busy summer season to 25.2m.
This would be around 1m less than the number that were available over the summer of this year.
The IAA put that limit in place to try to ensure that Dublin Airport remains within its 32 million passengers a year cap, put in place in 2007 as a condition to the granting of planning permission for the second terminal.
The High Court has already given the airlines permission to take a judicial review of the decision.
However, the airlines also want the implementation of the IAA decision paused until such time as that review has been considered by the courts.
Separate judicial review proceedings taken by Aer Lingus, Ryanair and airport operator daa over the IAA’s decision to cap winter passenger seats at 14.4m are already before the court and will be heard in December.
The court was previously told that if the IAA decision is implemented, Ryanair would lose 3,000 slots and 550,000 passenger seats, while Aer Lingus would lose 362,000 seats.
Senior counsel Martin Hayden for Ryanair said that if the airline lost certain slots in Dublin it would also lose slots in destination airports.
He said it was naïve to suggest the issue could be fixed for the airlines at a later date.
Mr Hayden said the airline was not asking the court to ignore the planning rules.
But he said daa is able to show that the issues which troubled the planning authorities when they made their decision in 2006/2007 are no longer relevant or softened.
He added that there is also a live planning application which may render the whole issue moot.
But Fintan Valentine SC for daa said the planning restrictions are binding at the airport and if a stay is granted those conditions will be breached.
Counsel for Aer Lingus said there was no way for airlines to recover their financial losses arising from the IAA decision, if the stay were not granted.
