Ryanair chief: 'Reasonable chance' Cork and Shannon hubs will never reopen

Eddie Wilson said the current crisis "could have been averted".

There is a 'reasonable chance' that Ryanair will never reopen its Cork or Shannon bases, the airline has told an Oireachtas committee on transport. File Picture.

It is questionable whether or not the Ryanair hubs at Cork and Shannon will ever reopen, the airline’s commercial chief has said.

Eddie Wilson, chief executive of Ryanair’s Designated Activity Company, said that there is “a reasonable chance” that the two Munster aviation hubs will not reopen for the airline.

Speaking to the Oireachtas Transport Committee, Mr Wilson called on Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan to “immediately” implement a traffic light travel system for air travel from Ireland in order to negate the effects of a “wasted summer”.

He said he didn’t know if the traffic light system due to be implemented across the EU from November 8 would be sufficient to stem the negative tide in terms of Ireland’s aviation industry.

“We don’t know what’s in the system, we don’t know if it’s regionalised,” he said.

Such a system would see it possible to fly to certain regions of a country but not others, depending upon the spread of the virus in those areas.

Mr Wilson said that there would be no Ryanair flights from Cork or Shannon “at the very least” between November 4 and December 12.

“The question is now whether or not they will reopen,” he said of the two airports, adding that the current crisis “could have been averted”.

“We are cutting ourselves off from Europe and I don’t think people are getting that fact. We will be able to put our aircraft elsewhere.”

He poured scorn on the Government’s response to the crisis in the aviation sector, expressing his dismay that he has not heard from Mr Ryan, and has received no indication as to why the State’s aviation task force recommendations have not been implemented.

“The green list has been a complete and utter disaster,” he said.

“When have Ryanair, Aer Lingus, and DAA ever been in agreement on anything before? You can fly today, it just takes the will of this Government to do something.” 

“I’ve made it clear — don’t demonise air travel. We’ve had a wasted summer which means people are not willing to travel because the Government is telling them not to.” 

He said airlines “need to see the data” behind the recommendations of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET).

Eddie Wilson, CEO, Ryanair, speaking in Cork Airport earlier this month. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Mr Wilson was appearing at the committee along with interim CEO of Aer Lingus Donal Moriarty, who claimed in his opening statement that the chances of contracting Covid-19 via air travel are “as low as one in 27 million”.

That assertion was dismissed as “not credible” by Sinn Fein’s spokesperson on transport Darren O’Rourke.

He did not call for immediate movement regarding the easing of flight restrictions, but did say that the coming traffic lights system “does need to evolve quickly”.

Key to future travel would be the implementation of pre-departure tests, he said, while advocating strongly for the use of “a rapid antigen testing”, which he said is the only way to “facilitate a meaningful increase in safe international travel”.

Antigen tests, which have a result turnaround time of roughly 30 minutes, have been put in place in Italy for traveller arrivals from areas at high-risk from the virus. German, British and French airports have also recently announced plans to introduce such testing, Mr Moriarty said.

The committee heard that a change in Aer Lingus’s approach to Shannon is not likely before next February, with much of the airline’s fleet currently being put in storage in Spain.