Passenger numbers climb at Kerry Airport as routes take off again

It will take “several years” for Kerry Airport to return to pre-pandemic passenger traffic levels in spite of an encouraging rise in the numbers travelling through the regional airport this summer, the agm of the company that operates the facility heard on Monday.

Passengers are returning in “significant” numbers to the airport, with an average of 170 people on European and UK flights, chief executive officer John Mulhern said.

“We were expecting the best year for several years but unfortunately Covid put an end to that,” Mr Mulhern said of 2020.

Flights from Kerry to London Stansted and to Luton have both returned four days a week. Flights to Alicante in southern Spain and to Faro in Portugal also returned, operating two days a week , and the Manchester route has finally taken off again, the meeting heard.

Rolls-Royce’s biggest investor calls for board ‘refresh’

---

Overseas travel increases but remains well below pre-pandemic levels

---

Emerald to lease aircraft for Aer Lingus regional services from Canadian firm

---

Irish air travel almost half pre-pandemic levels

---

Ryanair has taken over the Dublin to Kerry route on a commercial basis following the collapse in June of the Aer Lingus contractor Stobart, which was operating 80-seater aircraft on the State-subsidised regional route.

Some 50-60 passengers were using the daily morning and evening flights in and out of terminal 2 in Dublin, Mr Mulhern revealed. The Ryanair aircraft on the route was for 189 passengers, he noted, and it remained to be seen how this would pan out commercially.

Numbers before the pandemic on the Public Service Obligation route operated by Stobart had reached up to 60,000 passengers a year.

Business travellers

The new Ryanair flight times – slightly later to Dublin in the morning and returning earlier in the evening to Kerry – were not suiting business travellers who hoped to make morning connections, according to a shareholder contributing virtually.

However, Mr Mulhern said their hands were tied with Ryanair with regard to schedules. From Wednesday the flights were increasing to twice a day on the Kerry to Dublin route, he said.

There has also been a “significant upturn” in private and chartered flights in and out of Kerry airport from Europe and the US bringing tourists, Mr Mulhern said. Many of the private charters bring golfers to play at links courses in the southwest.

Kerry continued to operate during the pandemic as an emergency airport and also for medical and other necessary travel to and from Dublin. No Covid cases have been recorded among the passengers or the staff at the airport.

The airport is still heavily dependent on Government support, receiving more than €1.8 million in revenue grants and Covid and other supports for 2020. This was up from up from €1.27 million the previous year. It also received capital grants of €12.7 million.

The airport recorded an operating loss of almost €145,000 in 2020 compared with a profit of more than €1 million the previous year. Passenger numbers at Kerry amounted to just 83,000 last year, less than a quarter of the 370,000 people who travelled through the airport in 2019.