Airport operator DAA recorded pretax profits of €297.7 million as revenue surged 9 per cent to €1.1 billion in 2024, despite passenger cap limitations.
The company’s full year results show Dublin Airport had an additional 1.1 million passengers last year bringing the total to 34.65 million across 244,000 flights, extending far beyond its 32 million annual passenger cap.
“Dublin, we expect, will be over 36 million this year, based on what we see with airlines asking for slots,” DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs told The Irish Times.
The operator of Cork and Dublin airports is expecting to pay a dividend to the State of €68 million, following a more than 40 per cent rise in profits on 2023. Operating costs increased 4 per cent to €524 million.
“This is our best ever year, on the back of our best ever year,” the DAA chief executive said, “We are making passengers and shoppers happier and we’re taking more money off them because they’re buying more stuff.”
Aeronautical business accounted for €343 million of its total revenue, with nearly another quarter of its revenue coming from retail and catering concessions.
“We are the Tesco of Airports,” Mr Jacobs said, “We see ourselves as retailers. Travel is more simple, there will always be planes, there will always be runways – but these buildings we call terminals are essentially a shopping mall.”
€261 million in revenue came from overseas operations, such as international airport retail in Europe and the Middle East.
Dublin and Cork airports welcomed a total of 37,716,884 million passengers last year, DAA said, a 3.8 per cent increase as numbers steadied post-pandemic. Cork Airport saw strong 9.7 per cent growth in its passenger numbers, breaking the 3 million mark.
DAA chairman Basil Geoghegan said Dublin Airport operated under “a complicated, burdensome, and slow planning system”, saying the semi-State’s “ability to invest and provide vital connectivity is severely hampered”.
“The current and most immediate restriction is the outdated 32 million terminal passenger cap which dates from 2007,” he said. “It was originally based on long ago alleviated concerns about local traffic infrastructure, a matter over which DAA has no control.”
The company’s chief executive echoed such frustrations, labelling the planning system as “dog slow, particularly for us here in Fingal and that’s a pain in the backside”.
Mr Jacobs said that “tariffs, cost, economic and slow planning headwinds threaten Irish tourism and exports” and that Dublin Airport is already seeing some softening of demand for long haul flights and the retail spending of US passengers.
He said that “continuing uncertainty” has led to Ireland being the “only top-20 European country whose air travel showed a decline in scheduled capacity in Q1 2025.”
The semi-State recorded €223 million in capital investment in its airports last year. Net debt dropped by 16 per cent to €685 million, with DAA having borrowed to finance losses made during the pandemic.
Its international arm, which runs a number of airports such as Jeddah Airport and Red Sea International in Saudi Arabia, handled 49.2 million passengers in 2024.
