Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan should raise the funding cap for regional airports to boost tourism and growth, Ryanair has said.
Regional airports, including Knock and Kerry, qualify for the Department of Transport funding programme only while traffic remains below one million passengers a year. Ryanair argues that Mr Ryan should increase the limit to two million.
The airline says the current cap blocks tourism and economic growth by giving airports no incentive to increase numbers past the one million limit.
The Department of Transport recently said its regional airports programme met national aviation policy objectives, which pledge to increase international routes and maximise air travel’s contribution to growth.
However, Ryanair said on Friday that the programme contradicts this policy as it bars growth at regional airports beyond one million passengers a year.
The 32-million-passenger-a-year cap at Dublin Airport, imposed by planners, compounds this, the airline added in a statement.
Eddie Wilson, chief executive of Ryanair DAC, the group’s biggest carrier, declared that it was “astounding” that the Minister presided over the Dublin cap while also constraining regional airports.
“It makes no sense that the regional airports are being penalised with the removal of exchequer funding for growing tourism and delivering economic benefit to the regions,” he argued.
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Airports such as Knock, from where Ryanair flies to British and European destinations, had no incentive to grow beyond one million passengers even while their regions tried to grow tourism and jobs, Mr Wilson said.
Ryanair, he said, wanted to grow its Irish business by 50 per cent to 30 million passengers annually over the next six years by placing new jets worth more than $1.6 billion (€1.5 billion) in the Republic’s airports. This would create 800 jobs, double traffic at Cork, Kerry and Shannon, and involve a new base opening at Knock, but the one-million-passengers-a-year funding limit restricted these plans.
He noted that Ryanair had given details of the plan to the Minister when he met the airline in March.
A department spokesman pointed out that Government was considering extending aid “on a temporary, phased, step-down basis” beyond the one million passenger mark to avoid having to cut funding suddenly when the limit is breached. A recently completed review of the regional airports programme recommended this move, he added.
The programme also includes an exchequer-funded Dublin-Donegal air service, the spokesman pointed out.
“The review acknowledges, however, that further consideration could be given to how the programme could better support connectivity and regional development,” he said.
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