Dublin Airport has hit back at Ryanair's comments to temporarily use the land around the airport as a car park.
daa owns large swathes of fields surrounding the airport in Dublin's northside. The budget airline claimed that the airport operator could use the land as a temporary car park during the peak summer months.
A daa spokesperson said: "daa refutes the simplistic view that we can simply open up fields at Dublin Airport this summer and conjure up additional car park spaces.
"Car parking requires infrastructure which requires planning permission. We are running the 5th largest transatlantic hub airport in Europe, not a county fair."
Read more: Dublin Airport hiring security officers with decent wages and brilliant perks for busy summer
The comments come as Dublin Airport urged passengers to consider alternative transport options as car park spaces have been fully sold out as part of the summer rush. daa placed a bid to purchase the Quick Park facility near the airport which is currently closed.
The decision is being reviewed by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), which must approve the deal. Ryanair accused daa of using the car parks being full as a reason to pressure the CCPC to approve the bid.
daa refuted these claims, saying: "daa is far from being a monopoly. daa does not set its own charges as we are a regulated business unlike airlines who do set their own fares which have risen 30% in the past year.
"We offer ultra-low-cost charges at Dublin Airport, the lowest of any capital city airport in Europe, which are set to decrease by 30% presently.
"Hence why we are seeking a modest increase of a couple of euro to operate a resilient airport and reduce our maximum queue times even further to under 15 minutes by hiring even more security staff than the 800+ we currently employ."
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