PLANS HAVE been announced for a seaplane service between Foynes, Co Limerick, and Galway docks, to start next February.
Harbour Air Ireland Ltd, which was founded two years ago, is awaiting final approval from the Irish Aviation Authority to operate the service.
The service will be a joint venture with Harbour Air Malta, which will be supplying expertise and the aircraft, a 14-seater single-engine Otter seaplane.
Harbour Air Ireland director Emelyn Heaps said that the company hopes to operate two daily scheduled flights on the Foynes-Galway route. Each flight will last approximately 25 minutes.
“This would be the first seaplane service to operate out of Foynes in 60 years,” Mr Heaps said. Over the coming weeks, he said, the company would be applying for planning permission to establish a base at Mountshannon, on Lough Derg.
Harbour Air hopes to run charter flights from Mountshannon to Dublin and other destinations, using a 19-seater twin-engined plane.
Margaret O’Shaughnessy, director of the Foynes Flying Boat Museum, said she was very excited about the Harbour Air plans. “This is a culmination of a dream for us here at the museum,” she said. Foynes was Ireland’s first international airport, she added.
Passenger flights had operated from there for 10 years, from 1939 to 1949. The last flight, on October 17th, 1949, was to Lisbon, carrying pilgrims to Fatima, Ms O’Shaughnessy said.
Harbour Air also intends to run flights from Dublin and Belfast to Cork, Limerick and Waterford. Last week they applied for planning permission to construct a pontoon off Cill Rónáin on Inis Mór, one of the Aran Islands.