Knock-on effects keenly felt in tourism, arts and sport

FLIGHTS:The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has given a "conservative" estimate that the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull is costing the industry more than $200 million (€150 million) per day in lost revenues.

Among the Irish carriers, Aer Lingus has had a proportionately heavier hit than Ryanair, because Ryanair’s southern European routes have continued to operate.

Analysts at stockbrokers Bloxham say one week of keeping 60 per cent of its fleet on tarmac would reduce Ryanair’s revenues by €36 million. As some expenses are “saved” by not flying, the hit to profits would come in lower, at around €20 million. The sales hit to Aer Lingus is €20 million a week, Bloxham estimates: this converts into losses of €7 million.

With most airlines unlikely to pay compensation to stranded passengers, the main cost is the fare refunds, as well as expenses associated with re-routing aircraft.

RACING

“Denham arrived an hour ago, and he’s the real star,” said Liam Houlton, marketing director of the Punchestown Irish National Hunt Festival, which starts today.

With all of the racehorses safely transported by ferry and their trainers, owners and jockeys “travelling with them this time”, Punchestown is going ahead as planned.

“The show must go on,” said Houlton. But the festival’s bottom line will still be hurt, as many of the 15,000-plus UK racegoers expected won’t make it. Houlton expects about 8,000-10,000 UK racegoers will travel. This will dent total attendance, which reached 96,000 last year.

“Obviously it does affect our financial performance but it has a much bigger impact on the hotels and restaurants in the area,” says Houlton. Punchestown is estimated to be worth €70 million annually to the Kildare and Dublin economies. Organisers hope the good weather forecast will attract record numbers of Irish racegoers.

TOURISM

For Ireland’s beleaguered tourism industry, the loss of revenue from arriving passengers will only be partially offset by the extra revenues from stranded passengers. “The ones who really had to get back have gone back and we’re not getting people in,” said the Irish Hotels Federation chief executive John Power. “There is certainly going to be a net loss of business.”

But as well as damaging the industry’s “shoulder season”, the ash cloud has also managed to threaten future tourism revenues.

Fáilte Ireland has been forced to cancel Meitheal, the biggest tourism trade fair of the year, which was to start today. Some 275 overseas operators from 23 countries were supposed to attend the event, at which they would have received sales pitches from 300 Irish tourist firms. It has been provisionally rescheduled for May.

“It’s really, really unfathomable, but nature is nature. There’s not a thing you can do about it, to be honest, other than feeling desperately sorry for everyone,” said Eamonn McKeon, chief executive of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation. “We’ve really had blow after blow in the tourism industry and this is making things go from bad to worse.”

ARTS

The National Concert Hall (NCH) has cancelled five concerts, including last night’s performance of the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra. The Whale Watching Tour scheduled for Wednesday has also been cancelled, but a performance of the Kenyan Boys Choir will go ahead tonight, after the choir travelled by bus and ferry from Inverness.

Some 5,000 bums won’t make the NCH seats for which they were destined. “We’re giving full refunds to ticket-buyers and we’re also refunding the promoters their hire fee,” said NCH’s Rosita Wolfe. People who were due to attend a show by star tenor Russell Watson last Thursday should hold on to tickets, however, as this event has been rescheduled for August.

The roll call of cancelled music events also includes Grant Lee Phillips at the Sugar Club in Dublin, and Powderfinger in Vicar Street. LCD Soundsystem has cancelled its two Dublin gigs.

Other events to have bitten the dust include the Irish Chamber Choir of Paris’s concerts in Dublin, Maynooth and Galway.

CARGO

The biggest threat to the Irish economy comes from the cancellation of exporters’ cargo aircraft. According to the Irish Exporters Association (IEA), Irish companies export €95 million of goods by air every day – about 30 per cent of total exports. Almost half of the air exports are pharmaceutical products, while a quarter of the cargo is computer equipment.

Some 65 per cent of air exports are bound for the US market. Exporters are now opting to ship goods to the US, which can take more than 10 days, while others are transporting goods by sea and road to the southern European airports that have remained open.

“The big thing is to hold on to your customer base,” said IEA chief executive John Whelan. “Asian suppliers will try to grab the US customers of European exporters and US suppliers will do the same in Asia.”

The IEA is meeting Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation Batt O’Keeffe today to advise him of the impact of the grounding of exporters’ cargo. The incident has come at a time when the Government is looking to exporters to drag Ireland out of recession.