Kerry air service ‘by end of year’
Transport Minister Leo Varadkar yesterday said his department was in the final stages of consultation with Kerry Airport on specifications for a new public service obligation (PSO) service on the Dublin route.
Next step in the process, he said, was the submission of the tender notification to the European Commission for publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.
“On that basis, and allowing for the requirements of EU regulations regarding the procurement of PSO air services, a new PSO service could be in place by year end,” the minister told Kerry South TD Brendan Griffin in reply to a Dáil question.
Kerry has been without a PSO service since last November when Ryanair withdrew from its contract following a row with previous transport minister Noel Dempsey over funding.
Under the PSO, Ryanair had been providing three return flights per day on the critical Kerry-Dublin route.
Ryanair, which had been receiving a State payment of €1.7 million per year under the PSO, has since been providing just one daily flight on the route, purely on a commercial basis.
However, the airline’s chief executive Michael O’Leary has stated Ryanair will again be tendering for the new PSO contract which comes up for renewal next July.
Under a new summer schedule, one Ryanair plane will fly from Dublin to Kerry daily and the same plane will make a return flight directly back to Dublin
For business travellers using the route, it will no longer be possible to make a return flight to and from Kerry in one working day.
