Oireachtas transport committee to meet over aviation crisis

The committee is to meet after Ryanair's decision to close its bases at Cork Airport and Shannon. Picture: Larry Cummins

The Oireachtas transport committee is to hold public hearings in just over a week to discuss the crisis in the aviation industry.

Representatives of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet), Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), Ryanair, Aer Lingus, the DAA, including Cork Airport, and the Shannon Group, will be invited to the meetings during the week starting on Monday, October 26. 

Committee member senator Jerry Buttimer said it is not a pointless exercise, given that the taskforce on aviation recovery issued recommendations during the summer that have yet to be enacted.

"We are the sectoral committee which deals with transport matters," Mr Buttimer said. 

We will be trying to find solutions to the crisis, while trying to strike a balance with the public health requirements

"We are an island nation that requires aviation," he said. "And while there is limited public confidence in travelling at the moment, we need operational airports and we need to plan for the future of the aviation sector. Introducing testing will be a key part of that." 

The hearings were announced after an emergency meeting of the committee was called following Ryanair’s closure of its bases at Cork and Shannon airports for the winter. 

Ryanair, with 23 routes, was Cork’s biggest customer, carrying 1.3m of the 2.6m passengers who travelled through the airport last year.

The decision leaves the airport, which was opened 59 years ago today, with just five routes and facing traffic levels comparable to the early 1960s. The airline will continue to operate from Cork to London Stansted, and to the Polish cities of Katowice and Gdansk.

The transport committee has now written to Eamon Ryan, the transport minister, asking the Government to adopt the European Commission's so-called traffic light system for common rules on air travel, and for a decision on a pre-flight Covid-19 testing regime.

The heads of both Cork and Shannon airports have said that a rapid, low-cost, and scalable testing regime must be endorsed by the Government as part of an aviation recovery strategy.

Ireland is expected to make a decision on the EU traffic light travel system next week.

Committee chairman Kieran O’Donnell said the Covid-19 pandemic has devastated the aviation sector, which is worth billions of euro to the economy and supports 140,000 jobs.

"The closure of the Ryanair bases threatens the viability of Cork and Shannon airports and will have a devastating impact on the local economy, with many families impacted by redundancies," he said.