Call for UK-type fund to back routes from rural airports

A fund similar to one which is being used in Britain and which is EU-compliant could help embattled Cork Airport create more routes.

That is according to Ireland South MEP Deirdre Clun, a member of the EU transport committee.

She has called on the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to introduce an air connectivity fund which would offer start-up aid to specified key routes for Ireland’s secondary airports like Cork Airport.

Ms Clune said the British had established a similar fund in 2013, which is available for brand new routes from its regional airports that handle fewer than 5m passengers a year.

“The fund has worked well, where a total of £56m [€78.3m] is being made available to cover three years of financial support for start-up aid for brand new routes,” said Ms Clune. “The fund would be open to both airlines and airports to bid for.”

Ms Clune said the fund would be targeted at key strategic air routes linking rural Ireland with international hub airports.

“The idea is to drive connectivity to boost investment and tourism outside of Dublin,” she said. “The aid would be for routes that are not initially profitable enough to commercially justify the outlay, but could in the longer term be developed into viable routes.”

Ms Clune said the British fund is designed to be compatible with EU law and includes such routes as Dundee in Scotland to London Stansted. While the number of new airline routes in 2010 was 1,141 in Europe, this figure had fallen to just 251 new airline routes across Europe last year.

“That is a tenfold drop in the number of new routes that are coming on stream across Europe, as airlines consolidate and focus on volume routes in main international airports,” she said.

She cited a recent report by the European Parliament that singled out Ireland and Finland as two countries that recorded lower passenger numbers in 2013 than in 2004 in our secondary airports, bucking an overall EU growth in passenger numbers to secondary airports during this time.

“There are four airports in my Ireland South constituency,” she said. “Each of them is a vital piece of infrastructure. We need to protect and invest in ensuring they grow passenger numbers in the same way that Dublin has. Every 100,000 new passengers we bring through the airport creates 120 new direct jobs.

“The Minister for Transport has recently announced a new connectivity fund that will be spent from the proceeds of the recent sale of Aer Lingus to IAG. I have asked the minister to consider a regional air connectivity fund to support rural Ireland, rural jobs and to protect airports that we have taken years to establish and develop.”