FINGAL COUNTY COUNCIL has given ‘lift-off’ to Ryanair’s €40 million plans to construct a new state-of-the-art four bay aircraft maintenance hangar at Dublin airport.

This follows the Council granting planning permission for the major investment by the airline which is to create over 200 jobs for engineers and mechanics.

Hangar 7 – which is to be located to the north of Hangar 6 and the North Apron and south of Gatepost 1B on airport grounds – will facilitate the heavy and line maintenance of Ryanair’s fleet at Dublin Airport as the airline grows its fleet to 600 aircraft.

The Council has granted planning permission despite a call by the Irish Air Line Pilots Association (IALPA) to refuse planning permission for the proposal.

In a planning report lodged with the application, planning consultants for Ryanair, Coakley O’Neill, told the Council that the proposed facility will have 80 workers on site per each 12 hour shift.

The report states that the new maintenance hangar “will provide Ryanair with the required capabilities to support the operations of the Ryanair fleet of aircraft”.

The report states that all Ryanair aircraft “entering the hangar will generally, either be off-service from an incoming Ryanair existing scheduled passenger flight or entering into service within Ryanair’s existing scheduled passenger flights to and from Dublin Airport”.

The report states that “there will be no intensification of Ryanair’s use of Dublin Airport as a result of the proposed development”.

Coakley O’Neill argue that the scheme “will provide long term quality employment in the aviation services sector” in Dublin.

The planning consultants argued that “given the existing airside infrastructure uses on land and in the immediate vicinity of the site, an air transport infrastructure development, such as the hangar proposed, is the most appropriate use of the site”.

However, Director of Safety and Technical at IALPA, David Morrissey, told the Council that the application should be refused on a number of grounds.

In an IALPA submission, Morrissey contended that the application “is premature”.

Morrissey also argued that the proposed site location “is detrimental to safe flight operations and contravenes the Fingal County Council Development Plan”.

However, at the end of a 66-page planner’s report on the scheme, Fingal Co Council state that the construction of Hangar 7 “would not detract unduly from the amenity of the Dublin Airport complex and its surrounding area”.

Fingal Co Council has included a condition that the proposal is not to commence until such time as planning permission has been granted for the North Apron extension, which is intended to serve access to the proposed Hangar 7.

In a separate decision, Fingal Co Council granted planning permission to daa for an extension to the existing North Apron last week.