Dublin Airport is looking to hire 180 new staff to help it cope with growing passenger numbers that topped 25 million last year.
Indeed, 2015 turned out to be its busiest ever year with passenger numbers soaring by 15% or 3.3 million, leading operator daa to announce plans today to recruit new staff to help it cope with demand.
It says that the new staff will be recruited in areas such as security, customer service and asset management.
Ireland's Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Paschal Donohoe TD, welcomed the record-breaking traffic at Dublin Airport and the new jobs that are being delivered due to the growth in passenger numbers.
“Connectivity is vital for our island economy and the impact of these additional passengers and new routes at Dublin Airport will be felt right across the country," he enthuses.
"I welcome the new jobs being announced here today and look forward to continued growth in passenger numbers and employment at Dublin Airport in the years ahead.
“Extra inbound passengers at Dublin Airport helped to bring record numbers of tourists to Ireland last year, and the opportunities offered to business by new routes from Dublin and additional choice on existing services similarly helped to boost trade and foreign direct investment, all of which are assisting our economic recovery."
Daa reveals that the huge upturn in passenger numbers was fuelled by 22 new routes and extra capacity on almost 40 existing services.
And it claims that the growth in passenger numbers is expected to continue into 2016, as 11 new scheduled services have already been announced for this year, including new direct transatlantic services to Hartford Connecticut, Los Angeles, Newark and Vancouver.
There are also new long-haul charter services to Cancun in Mexico and Montego Bay in Jamaica.
“Dublin Airport had a fantastic year of passenger growth in 2015, which is good news for the Irish economy, for tourism, and for job creation, both at the airport and in the wider economy,” says daa's chief executive, Kevin Toland.
“We are hiring 350 additional staff as a direct result of this growth in passengers at Dublin Airport. We recruited about 170 new people last year and a further new 180 staff will be hired during 2016.
“These additional staff are mainly in customer-facing areas, as we work to ensure that Dublin Airport continues to offer an excellent and efficient product to our passengers and airline customers as traffic increases."
Dublin Airport is also continuing to invest in upgrading its facilities.
Improvements are being made to the departures and arrivals areas and security screening within Terminal 1 and an award-winning new retail and food and beverage area opened in T1 last year.
Ten new aircraft parking stands will be completed before the summer, and an extension to the Terminal 2 multi-storey car park has been added to meet increased customer demand.
“We are constantly investing in the airfield and the passenger facilities to allow our customers to operate as efficiently as possible, and to provide a quality travel experience to the travelling public,” adds Toland.
Dublin Airport is also currently evaluating plans for the development of a new runway, which will be an essential enabler for the Irish economy for many decades to come.
A second parallel runway has been part of the Dublin Airport local area plan since the 1970s. Planning permission for a new runway was granted in 2007, but the project was put on hold due to the economic downturn.
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