Airports

Ireland’s PM kicks-off Dublin Airport’s €320 million North runway project

Dublin Airport’s North runway project performed official sod-turning this morning (February 14), with Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s Prime Minister and Shane Ross, MP for transport tourism and sport in Ireland.

The airport’s €320 million runway project, funded through a combination of Dublin Airport Authority’s (DAA) own revenues and borrowings, is contracted to Irish construction company Roadbridge and the Spanish infrastructure group FCC Construcción (FCC).

The 3.1-kilometre runway will be located almost 1.7-kilometres north of Dublin Airport’s current main runway. Construction is expected to take two years supporting the creation of 31,200 new Irish jobs.

Mr Varadkar said: “This new runway is part of the government’s €116 billion Project Ireland 2040 plan to modernise infrastructure, remove bottlenecks and enable future growth. Connectivity is one of the principles behind Project Ireland, linking Ireland to the world and all parts of Ireland to each other.”

The contract includes building 306,000 square metres of new runway and taxiways, six-kilometres of new internal airport roads with two new electricity substations. New drainage and pollution controls will also be installed, as well as roughly eight-kilometres of electrical cable, 11-kilometres of CCTV cable and more than 2,100 new runway and taxiway lights.

Dalton Philips, chief executive for DAA, said: “Annual traffic has grown from five-million passengers in 1989, when Runway 10/28 opened, to a record 31.5 million passengers last year (2018). North Runway will enable continued expansion and connectivity growth at Dublin Airport in the decades ahead.”

Separately, DAA is also planning a new five-year investment programme for Dublin Airport, including a €900 million investment in new boarding gate areas, aircraft parking stands and other improvements alongside a €120 million annual spend on repair and maintenance and revenue generating projects.

DAA is insulating about 200 homes near the airport to the highest standards and has also set up a voluntary scheme to buy up to 38 properties that are most affected by the North Runway development. Read more on the project plans here. 

Photo by The Daily Mail – Dublin Airport – The proposed new runway plans from 2016
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