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Airlines fury at airport cap and Wizz Air’s faded ambition

The best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

26/06/2022 - NEWS - 3:30 pm Sunday 26th June - The Queue for the Departure Gates inside Terminal 1 at Dublin Airport. While the queue was long it was moving swiftly. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times

Dominic Coyle's face
Dominic Coyle
Wed May 8 2024 - 06:08

Airlines are threatening legal action after the Irish Aviation Authority imposed a limit on the number of passengers passing through the airport next winter, writes Barry O’Halloran. Ryanair and Aer Lingus have both challenged the authority of the regulator to limit their passenger numbers between the end of October and the end of March 2025 on the basis on local authority planning conditions.

Separately, Philip Georgiadis talks to József Váradi, who expanded his Wizz Air aggressively during Covid with the aim of challenging Ryanair’s supremacy in Europe only to run into a series of crises just as the sector was recovering after the pandemic which have put that ambition on hold as he and his team to focus on more pressing concerns.

In his column, Martin Wolf inquires why, given his apparently impressive record on the economy, are so many US voters so sceptical of Joe Biden at a time when the plans of his Republican opponent, Donald Trump, for a second term are those of a dictator.

Plans by renewables group Ørsted to build an 11-turbine wind farm in east Clare have run into opposition from an unexpected quarter – a nearby silent Buddhist retreat centre, writes Gordon Deegan.

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Sticking with planning issues, a ready meals tycoon’s plan to turn the historic Derreen House and Gardens near Kenmare in Kerry into short-term tourist accommodation by building himself a new home elsewhere on the site has been scuppered by An Bord Pleanála, writes Anne Lucey.

Gayle Killilea, the former wife of bankrupt developer Sean Dunne, is back in the Irish courts, this time urging the Irish High Court to dismiss a 2014 case brought against her by the trustee of Mr Dunne over allegedly fraudulent property transfers.

Apple updated its range of iPads yesterday for the first tie in two years but, writes Ciara O’Brien, its unveiling of a new chip to power some of them might be the bigger reveal with one eye on the future potential of artificial intelligence.

The Government office set up to handle protected disclosures says in its first annual report that gaps in regulation of parts of the private healthcare sector means that wrongdoing highlighted by whistleblowers may not be fully addressed. Ian Curran reports.

There’s plenty to read in Ronald Quinlan’s commercial property section, including the sale of Meta’s now vacated Dublin dockland office, Beckett House, which is guiding €35 million, a far cry from the €101 million the Comer brothers got for it in 2018.

A large logistics site in Swords which is currently used by the National Museum of Ireland as a collections resource centre guiding at €20 million while two sites in Dublin – in Tallaght and Sandyford – with residential potential are on the market for €4.75 million and €2.75 million respectively.

Finally, investments as varied as a building on Grafton Street at €3 million, a former monastery in Co Galway at €3.75 million or over 1,000 acres of forestry across eight counties for sale in anything from one to 11 separate lots for around €7.5 million are among the other offerings.

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