Ryanair Operates 1st Flight On Dublin’s New Northern Runway

The new landing strip opened some 15 years after the project first received planning permission.

 

Yesterday marked a celebratory occasion at Dublin Airport (DUB), as a Ryanair flight leaving the Irish capital became the first to use the facility's new runway. This marked the end of a 15-year project costing hundreds of millions of Euros, with the new landing strip being significantly longer than its counterparts at the airport.

Lift off

The flight in question was numbered as FR1964, and its destination was Eindhoven Airport (EIN) in the Netherlands. According to data from FlightRadar24.com, the service, which the BBC notes was the only one to use the new runway on August 24th, took to the Irish skies at 12:10 local time. Several spectators were present to watch the inaugural departure, as shown in the video below.

After an hour and 17 minutes in the skies, the flight touched down in Eindhoven at 14:27 local time, 13 minutes ahead of its scheduled arrival. The aircraft operating the flight was a 2019-built Boeing 737 MAX 8-200 registered as EI-HAW, which had already completed a round trip from Dublin to Amsterdam that morning. According to Irish broadcaster RTÉ, Dublin Airport Authority CEO Dalton Philips stated:

"The addition of the north runway will further enhance the role of Dublin Airport as a vital economic enabler for Irish tourism, trade and foreign direct investment."

A long time coming

The opening of the new runway marked the culmination of a decade and a half of hard work, with the airport having first received planning permission for the project back in August 2007. However, the effects of the global financial crisis in the late 2000s on the aviation industry hindered early work on the runway's development.

Nonetheless, by the mid-2010s, the airport was eyeing a 2021 opening for its new landing strip. Construction work commenced in December 2016, although COVID-19 ultimately pushed the opening back to 2022. The project is reported to have cost Ђ320 million (£269 million), but the airport will be hoping that the subsequent improvement in connectivity will be worth the investment. Philips added:

"I am enormously proud of everyone who helped deliver this remarkable piece of aviation engineering both on budget and on schedule, ready to commence operation at a vital time for aviation and for Ireland."

Dublin Airport's longest runway

As well as making history by being Dublin Airport's newest runway, the strip is also now the longest at the facility. Indeed, clocking in at 3,110 meters long, runway 10L/28R is almost 18% longer than the 2,637-meter-long runway 10R/28L that runs parallel to it. These strips are intersected by the 2,072-meter runway 16/34.

The addition of a runway that stretches more than three kilometers in length could help Dublin Airport to grow in the future. After all, RTÉ notes that it will be able to handle large widebody quadjets such as the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 747-8. With post-pandemic travel rebounding strongly, it looks to have opened just in time.