RYANAIR has stepped up its continuing dispute with the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) by refusing to move its check-in facilities to a new €15m departure area in the basement of the airport’s terminal building.

The new facility is designed to ease the airport’s chronic congestion and is capable of handling 4m passengers a year. This is roughly equivalent to the number of travellers Ryanair puts through Dublin airport.

The DAA believes Ryanair’s move to the basement will help ease pressure on the airport’s management, which has come under fire for the terminal’s third-rate facilities and overcrowding.

It is understood the airline is refusing to relocate its staff until the airport authority agrees a new deal on airport charges. “We have no plans to move,” the airline said.

It is understood the DAA still hopes it can broker a last-minute deal with Ryanair. But with the clock ticking down to the new facility’s opening at the end of this month, time is running out.

“We are currently in discussions with a number of customers and will have one or a number of users for the new facility when operational trials are completed within a matter of weeks,” the DAA said.

The new facility, know as area 14, is a vital part of the DAA’s plan to provide a short-term solution to overcrowding at Dublin airport. A record 21.3m passengers passed through the terminal last year, up 13% on 2005. Between December 22 and January 5, the peak Christmas travel period, a record 1m passengers used the airport. This was up 12% on the previous year.

With Ryanair and Aer Lingus planning to launch new routes this year, passenger figures are set to increase further in 2007.

The DAA hopes the new check-in desks will ease the pressure until Pier D opens in October and the second terminal is built, which could be more than two years away.

“The principal benefit to passengers and airlines of Area 14 is that it will provide significant additional check-in and baggage handling facilities at Dublin airport and will free up additional circulation space on what can be a very congested departures floor at peak travel times,” a DAA spokesman said.

The dispute over Ryanair’s move is part of a wider agenda, which has seen Michael O’Leary, the airline’s chief executive, lock horns with the DAA over the construction of a second terminal at the airport complex. O’Leary is also staunchly opposed to the DAA’s plans to raise €75m for its building programme by increasing passenger charges.

The airline has not limited itself to battling with airport authorities. It is also engaged in a war of words with Ian Pearson, Britain’s environment minister, over the company’s environmental track record.

O’Leary argued his airline was “the greenest” in Europe after Pearson claimed Ryanair’s opposition to measures designed to fight climate change made it “the irresponsible face of capitalism”. Ryanair’s boss said Pearson did not know what he was talking about and that road transport and power generation operators were far worse culprits when it came to carbon emissions.

His claims have been criticised by the Green party, which says he accuses TDs and environmentalists of telling lies, while misrepresenting the situation.

Ciaran Cuffe, the Green party TD, said: “Ryanair is one of the most ardently anti-green airlines in Europe and is vehemently opposed to entering into an EU emissions trading system that would see it have to account for its skyrocketing pollution. If anybody is talking nonsense about the environment it is Michael O’Leary, not the UK’s environment minister.

“Claims that new aircraft have reduced CO2 emissions by 45% over the past eight years are almost entirely worthless when contrasted with an increase in passenger numbers of more than 600% in the same period.

“Rather than decreasing, in net terms Ryanair’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone through the roof. Michael O’Leary is the fool if he expects anybody to believe he has a green bone in his body.”

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