Speaking at a meeting of the Oireachtas Transport Committee, Kenny Jacobs, chief executive of daa, said that he expects the number of passengers travelling to and from the airport by the end of the year to be 32 million or “slightly less”.

“There are still six weeks to go, you might have two very bad weeks of weather. Travel demand is a little bit softer this winter,” he said, adding that he believes that the limit will not be breached this year.

When asked if passengers could see their flights disrupted or re-routed to different airports if the limit was in fact hit, Mr Jacobs assured politicians that this would not be the case.

"There will be no disruption that any people need to be worried about family members coming home this Christmas,” he said.

Mr Jacobs said there are conversations going on with airlines about what is going to happen in 2024 as Dublin Airport will be complying with the 32 million limit until they get the green light to increase capacity.

He said daa is “actively managing down capacity” by taking out transit passengers, removing airline growth incentives, and making difficult choices on charter flights and non-scheduled flights.

Mr Jacobs said daa would like to see the cap lifted as he believes caps do not work, citing the recently removed limit for Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

While the cap was imposed, airlines such as Air France-KLM simply moved hub traffic to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and was not instead moved to regional airports.

“A cap at Dublin Airport will really just make the airline say will we move to another big hub airport like Manchester or like Edinburgh,” he said. “That's not good for jobs here in Ireland.” 

A daa analysis said that if the Dublin Airport cap is not raised, 16,000 new jobs could be lost, air fares will go up as seats are limited and newer more efficient aircraft are located elsewhere.