First concrete pavement poured at Dublin's airport new north runway

The first concrete pavement for Dublin Airport’s new North Runway has been laid. The construction of the pavement quality concrete runway is a key milestone for the €320 million North Runway project. The concrete was poured at the western end of the new runway, which is more than six times longer than Dublin’s O’Connell Street.
North Runway is 3.1km long and is located almost 1.7km north of Dublin Airport’s current main runway. The runway is being built by a joint venture comprising Limerick-based construction company Roadbridge and the Spanish infrastructure group FCC Construcción (FCC). Roadbridge FCC won the main runway construction contract last October, following an international tender process.
The runway contract includes the construction of 306,000 square metres of new runway and taxiways. The runway and taxiways are being built to a depth of almost one metre in four separate layers in order to support the weight of a fully loaded aircraft. Construction of the North Runway development is progressing on time and on budget with the construction element of the project due to be completed in early 2021.
Dalton Philips daa chief executive said: “North Runway is an essential development for the Irish economy and will help underpin additional tourism, trade and foreign direct investment for decades to come. The delivery of North Runway will address the bottleneck that we have in relation to runway capacity - as the existing main runway is effectively full at key times of the day. But the airport also urgently needs new boarding gate areas, more aircraft parking stands, and other improvements if Ireland is to maximise the benefits of the new runway.”
However, Philips warned that “the full economic benefits of the new runway risk being squandered in the medium term, as Dublin Airport will be unable to afford the investment urgently needed in other facilities, unless the Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) reverses its plan to cut airport charges by 22%.”
daa had intended to invest almost €2 billion to improve and expand facilities at Dublin Airport, while keeping its airport charges flat for the next five years. However, due to the regulator’s plans and the uncertainty that they have created, the next phase of development has been stood down.
“Because of the regulator’s proposals we could end up with a world-class new runway, but a yellow pack passenger experience,” Philips said. “That’s not what our customers want, and it’s not what Ireland needs.”
Charges at Dublin Airport are already 30-40% cheaper than its European peers, but the aviation regulator plans to reduce them by a further 22%, which would mean that daa would be unable to finance the expansion and improvement in facilities that is required.