11,000 flights had fewer than 10% of seats filled during Covid years

An empty Cork Airport during the pandemic years.

Over 11,000 flights operated to and from Irish airports with fewer than 10% of seats filled during the pandemic-hit years of 2020 and 2021.

Figures released by the Department of Transport on foot of a parliamentary question by Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan show that in 2020, there were 7,617 such flights, with 3,417 the following year, as flights continued despite major restrictions on foreign travel.

Those figures compare with just 203 in the pre-Covid year of 2019.

The figures show that in 2020, 5,720 of the flights went through Dublin Airport, 556 to and from Cork, 281 through Shannon, 141 through Knock, 614 through Kerry, and 305 through Donegal.

The numbers for Dublin, Kerry, and Donegal Airports include the State-supported Public Service Obligation (PSO) scheduled air service. This is contracted to operate, regardless of capacity, to ensure access to essential services.

Ms Hourigan said the numbers were surprising after she had asked the then-junior transport minister Hildegarde Naughton for the figures in October.

'Ghost' flights

At that time, Ms Naughton said that so-called "ghost" flights were being flown by airlines during the Covid-19 pandemic, primarily to retain use of slots at congested European airports.

These slots at the continent's busiest airports are governed by European regulations.

During the pandemic, the European Commission introduced a delegated act that reduced the threshold for operating flights which was required by airlines to keep their historic slot entitlements at all European airports to 50%.

Currently, for winter 22/23, the threshold is 75%, and this will rise back to 80% in summer 2023.

Ms Naughton told Ms Hourigan that any airline operating ghost flights solely to retain control of certain airport slots is "of course, a cause for concern particularly from an environmental perspective".

"It should be borne in mind that flights may have operated with lower passenger numbers in order to ensure the continued flow of air cargo during the pandemic, or to ensure that aircraft remained operationally ready," she said.

'Use it or lose it' rule

"[Since the beginning] of the Covid-19 pandemic, the EU adopted alleviation measures to address the impact that travel and public health related restrictions had on the ability of airlines to retain use of slots at congested EU airports as permission to use such slots is largely based on historic use; the so-called 'use it or lose it' rule.

"The purpose of the alleviation measures was to reduce the commercial risk to airlines from non-utilisation of airport slots where traffic had fallen away. The alleviation measures applied have been gradually reduced as travel restrictions have been lifted and European aviation recovers from the impact of the pandemic.

"However, to address any continuing uncertainty due to Covid-19 and the situation in Ukraine, additional alleviation measures for the upcoming winter scheduling period and a period beyond is currently being considered at EU level."

Ms Hourigan told the Irish Examiner  that the number of flights was particularly concerning given that Ireland had not reduced its carbon emissions during the pandemic.

She said the scale of the flights in regional airports also showed that this was not just about holding slots.

A spokesperson for Ryanair said it had flown no ghost flights, while a spokesperson for Aer Lingus said it was "required to operate a significantly reduced schedule and only operated flights to facilitate passenger travel and cargo transport".