Oil and gas boom boosts Carrickfinn

LOCATED on the Atlantic seaboard in the extreme north-west, Donegal Airport is the country’s most remote regional airport with the smallest catchment area of any in the state.

Despite its relative isolation, the airport at Carrickfinn, near the village of Kincasslagh, has recorded steady growth over the past decade and has stayed ahead of Sligo in the battle to avoid the title of the regional airport with the least activity.

Last year, 60,000 passengers used the small airport — an almost 7% increase on 2006 — a result that has given airport management guarded optimism about the future.

However, growing activity in the oil and gas exploration industry is believed to be behind the latest increase in traffic, rather than any big rise in passengers on the two scheduled routes operated by Aer Arann to Dublin and Glasgow-Prestwick.

Airport management claim work by Shell and Statoil, which are drilling in the Corrib gasfield and other sites in the Atlantic, is mostly responsible for the increased activity. It is a matter of certain pride for the airport that it appears to have beaten off potential competition from Sligo and Knock to attract such business.

The authorities also anticipate that the ongoing work will mean direct charters to bring oil and gas executives from the main North Sea centres of Aberdeen and Stavanger in Norway as well as increased helicopter activity in coming years.

“It has provided a great boost for us and other local businesses,” an airport spokesman said who said the activity brings in additional revenue of about €50,000 per month during the drilling season.

Also, a weekly charter to Rotterdam during 20 weeks of the summer is expected to bring 1,000 Dutch visitors to Donegal this year.

Dublin schoolchildren opting to fly to Donegal for their trip to the Gaeltacht have also helped.

No doubt, flying to Donegal is an attractive alternative to a long car journey when one-way fares on the Government-subsidised route can cost as little as €25.

Not unlike most other regional airports, Donegal has always depended on the PSO (Public Service Obligation) route to Dublin. The service accounts for almost three out of every four passengers landing at Carrickfinn. However, Donegal Airport can point to the fact that traffic levels on the route have grown consistently from 2,000 in 1996 to 19,000 in 2002 and 43,800 last year.

State funding for the PSO has also grown, from €2.1m in 2002 to an estimated €5.4m in 2008.

Unlike, Sligo, Galway and possibly Knock, PSO funding for the Donegal-Dublin service seems guaranteed when the franchise to operate it comes up for renewal in 2011.

However, the potential for Donegal to expand is probably dictated to a large extent by the performance of its nearest rival, City of Derry Airport, which is a more convenient facility for many in Donegal.

Derry also offers people in the north-west a greater number of destinations with scheduled services to Stansted, Bristol, East Midlands, Liverpool, Glasgow and Prestwick.

Crucially for the fortunes of Donegal Airport, the county’s largest town, Letterkenny, is less than 50km from City of Derry but 60km across a mountainous road to Carrickfinn.