Ryanair, Ireland’s largest airline, today (Fri 6 Oct) criticised the RTE Prime Time report on the noise issues at Dublin Airport on Tues 3 Oct last.

This programme, which featured interviews with a number of residents in North County Dublin, was largely based on false claims about flight paths and unverified hearsay claims made by a tiny number of residents in Ashbourne, Portmarnock, and Saint Margaret’s.

The FACTS about noise at Dublin Airport (which were conveniently ignored by RTE Prime Time) are as follows;

1. Since the 2^nd runway opened in Aug 2022, there has been no increase in night-time noise, because no aircraft are allowed to take off from the 2^nd runway between 11pm and 7am in the morning.
2. The vast majority of (Ryanair) aircraft operating to/from Dublin Airport are now up to 50% quieter than they were 16 years ago when the planning permission for the 2^nd runway was first approved.
3. The claims about the Kilcoskan National School do not stand up to scrutiny when students only attend this school between the hours of 09:00am and 15:00pm, and so this school is entirely unaffected by night-time noise.
4. Almost all of the claims made by local residents come from persons who purchased or built their houses in the last 30 years, well aware of the fact that Dublin Airport has been located at Collinstown since 1939, over 84 years ago.
5. Of the 26,000 noise complaints submitted to DAA in 2022, over 23,400 or 90% were made by just 1 person.

Ryanair today released a video confirming that there is a very marginal increase of ambient decibel noise levels when aircraft take off over St Margaret’s, Ballyboughal, and/or Ashbourne. In all cases, these decibel levels are far less than normal noise levels in Dublin City Centre. These measurements were taken outside, and therefore people living or sleeping in houses around Dublin Airport do not suffer excessive (or sleep affecting) noise, a fact that was falsely reported by RTE Prime Time.

Ryanair’s Eddie Wilson said:

“It comes as no surprise that RTE Prime Time cannot accurately report on the airport noise issue at Dublin Airport.

RTE’s Prime Time broadcast referred to night-time noise without explaining that there are very few aircraft movements between 11pm and 7am in the morning and almost all of these are operated by new “quieter” aircraft.

Secondly, they failed to take any decibel noise readings inside the homes or bedrooms of the 2 residents who complained about aircraft noise and/or night-time noise affecting their sleep.

Thirdly, RTE wrongly reported that Dublin Airport flight paths were not the ones that were originally approved by Finglas County Council, despite Dublin Airport correcting this factual error on camera.

 Fourthly, the 3 complaining residents identified on the programme appear to have moved into their properties in the last decade, well aware that they were in the immediate environment of Dublin Airport, which continues to take stringent steps to reduce noise, not least of which has been multi-billion-dollar investments by Dublin’s main airlines, Ryanair and Aer Lingus, in quieter aircraft and IAA approved noise ameliorating flight paths.

It is notable that over 90% of the noise complaints submitted to DAA came from just 1 person. Some modest level of noise is inevitable for residents living in and around Dublin Airport. These residents benefit from the increasing value of properties around Dublin Airport. At a time when airlines are investing heavily in noise reducing aircraft, Ryanair calls on RTE Prime Time to “shsssh” unless they want to report the facts about reducing aircraft noise at Dublin Airport.”