Ryanairs Plans for Cork Airport

Ryanair is unlikely to start any new routes from Cork until next September, with the airline saying yesterday that it will be harder to grow from there than from other Irish airports.
Speaking at the launch of the airline’s latest Irish-based expansion — nine new routes from Dublin Airport, creating 1,000 jobs and potentially delivering an additional 700,000 passengers per year — Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary said expansion talks are ongoing with Cork and Kerry airports, but that the airline’s additional growth at both will be relatively modest and not as immediate as at other centres.

Ryanair reacted to the Government’s budget pledge to scrap the consumer travel tax by saying it will grow its traffic through Irish airports by around one million passengers per year. Since the budget announcement, the airline has added eight new routes from Shannon and three at Knock. All, including the new ones at Dublin, will come on stream next spring/summer. Whatever is expanded at Cork, however, is unlikely to technically begin until next September.

New figures from the Dublin Airport Authority show that passenger flow through Dublin Airport is up by 8% in the year-to-date; while Cork is down 2%.

DAA chief Kevin Toland said that while Ryanair’s recent announcement of a Cork-to-East Midlands service is welcome, overall recovery at Cork Airport will be a long journey.

Mr O’Leary, meanwhile, said the removal of the travel tax was key to his airline’s growth plans for Ireland, adding that the real barrier has been the tax and not airport charges, which are set to stay frozen for a third straight year at DAA airports in 2014. He added that Ryanair’s relationship with the DAA has been unfairly categorised as being poor, explaining that the two bodies have ups and downs, but are currently entering into an ‘up’ period.

Regarding Transport Minister Leo Varadkar’s statement that the travel tax could be re-introduced if airlines didn’t positively respond to its scrapping, Mr O’Leary said that if that happened it would likely have the same effect as it did in the first place, and drive growth to other EU countries.

The Government broadly welcomed Ryanair’s ongoing expansion and urged other airlines to follow suit.

On other issues, Mr O’Leary reiterated that Ryanair is open to selling its stake in Aer Lingus, adding that he would encourage any interested party to open discussions. He also denied that Ryanair was attempting to launch a wide-reaching price war in the European market.
© Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserve