Brits braced for travel chaos at Christmas with Ryanair flights to Dublin set to cost £426

Brits have been warned that flights over Christmas between Dublin and London could cost as much as £426 due to a passenger cap.

According to reports, more than one million seats have been cut from the budget airline's winter schedule after a row over the volume of passengers passing through the airport.

They have now warned that prices "will go through the roof" for Christmas, mid-term breaks, St Patrick's Day, Cheltenham and other sports events until the cap is lifted.

Kenny Jacobs, chief executive of the DAA, which operates the airport, said he agrees that the passenger cap needs to be raised to accommodate demand.

But Transport Minister and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has yet again vowed that he won't interfere with the planning process. The DAA has applied to Fingal County Council for planning permission for building works that would enable the cap increased to 40 million a year, reports the Daily Mail.

It is also considering submitting a second planning application to increase the cap to 35 million or 36 million.

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) said it was "completely bizarre" that a piece of national infrastructure was being governed by rules set by a small local authority. 

However, a spokesman for the Department of Transport stated: "Nothing has changed since Ryanair first made claims of this nature. The minister has said on numerous occasions at this stage that he cannot, and will not, intervene in the independent planning process."

Ryanair said the limit is having "a devastating effect on tourism, jobs and the economy".

The airline said it would typically allocated an additional 300,000 seats during the Christmas period, but this will not happen this year.

There are even fears that special flights such as those to see Santa in Lapland could be lost, Ryanair said. The airline is hoping to carry 7.5 million passengers to and from Dublin airport this December, but has only been allocated 6.4 million.

As a result of the limit, passengers could face higher fares than usual. Ryanair chief executive Eddie Wilson said: "The issue of winter slots means that we are going to have one million less passengers than we would have planned at Dublin Airport for this winter.

"The traffic cap means that Dublin is closed for business and it will have a devastating effect on tourism, jobs and the economy. Airlines put in for extra flights for peak periods during the winter but the cap is now stopping us from... we can only put in the routes that we had last year subject to the cap. With those 300,000 seats not on sale, the price on the Dublin-to-London route is going to go through the roof this Christmas."