"City airport passenger limits to be reviewed"
Belfast
Telegraph - 18th October2004
A bid by Belfast City Airport to have a long-standing cap on its passenger
numbers relaxed has taken a significant step forward, it emerged today.
The Department of the Environment is set to launch a consultation process involving interested parties such as residents' groups and local politicians.
At present the airport is limited to offering three million seats a year, 1.5 million outbound and 1.5 million inbound.
But with traffic at City Airport steadily increasing, the ceiling - which dates from 1983 - is close to being breached.
Plans by flyBE to start a new service to Liverpool next February are expected to finally push the seats on offer figure through the three million barrier.
In June BCA applied to the Planning Service for an review of the restriction, which is part of the existing planning consent.
BCA said it was happy to abide by the night-time curfew but wanted permission to increase the number of seats on offer.
A spokesman for the airport said: "With three months to go this year the number of seats we have on offer stands at 2.2 million.
"Our current projections indicate that we will end the year just within the three million limit.
"But when Liverpool starts in February, it is likely that the numbers will creep past that limit, something about which we have made the planners fully aware.
"We met the planning service last week and have been told that a consultation process is to be launched.
"Once that is completed, we expect the Planning Service to give us a decision in the first quarter of next year."
A spokesman for the DoE said: "The Planning Service is continuing to consider BCA's request to review the planning agreement particularly in relation to seats for sale.
"We will shortly be announcing how this will be taken forward as part of an open and transparent process."
Such consultations usually last for six weeks and provide the planners with a chance to assess the views of various stakeholders.
The flyBE service, which will involve four flights a day each way, is expected to add 200,000 seats to the total on offer at BCA.
A flyBE spokesman said: "At present we have 1.86 million seats on offer to and from Belfast City Airport.
"We have not lobbied the Planning Service but we are supportive of BCA's bid to increase its passenger numbers and made this point in our recent submission to the Northern Ireland Affairs committee."
The issue of capacity at Northern Ireland's three airports is one of the issues due to be considered by the NI Affairs Committee as part of its forthcoming inquiry into air transport services in Northern Ireland.
The closing date for submissions to the committee was September 30 and hearings are expected to be held next month.
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