Kerry Airport passengers returning in 'significant' numbers
Kerry Airport's chief executive John Mulhern warned it will take “several years” for the the airport to recover from the impact of Covid.
Passengers are returning in “significant” numbers to Kerry Airport with an average of 170 people on board flights from the UK and Europe which resumed this summer, the airport’s AGM has heard.
But while 2021 will see an improvement on the devastating drop in revenue and numbers in 2020, it will take “several years” for the regional airport to recover from the impact of Covid, chief executive John Mulhern cautioned.
“We were expecting the best year [2020] for several years but unfortunately Covid put an end to that,” Mr Mulhern said.
Separately, the Department of Transport has published a new €17m three-year contract for the re-establishment of Donegal’s air link with Dublin from early next year.
The new public service obligation (PSO) route is expected to carry a minimum of two return flights - at least one early morning flight from Donegal and one late evening flight from Dublin - capable of handling 120 passengers in total, on a daily basis.
The Donegal-Dublin route, along with the publicly-subsidised Kerry flights, was one of many axed with immediate effect after the collapse of regional carrier Stobart Air in early June, leaving 480 people unemployed.
The Kerry Airport AGM heard that flights from Kerry to London Stansted and Luton have both resumed four days a week; flights to Alicante in southern Spain and to Faro in Portugal have also returned and operate two days a week, while the Manchester route has finally also taken off.
Flights to Germany, operated by Ryanair and which had been key for Kerry tourism, have yet to resume. The Kerry-Frankfurt-Hahn route, which had run for many years before the pandemic, may resume later in the year but there was no indication of when the Berlin route would return, Mr Mulhern said.
Ryanair has now taken over the Dublin-Kerry route on a commercial basis following the collapse of Stobart, which had been operating an 80-seater aircraft on the State-subsidised route.
Some 50-60 passengers were currently using the daily morning and evening flights in and out of Dublin’s Terminal 2, Mr Muhern said. The Ryanair aircraft on the route could accommodate 189 passengers, and it remained to be seen how this would work out commercially.
The new Ryanair flight times - departing slightly later in the morning to Dublin and returning earlier in the evening to Kerry - were not suiting business travellers hoping to make onward connections from Dublin, one shareholder told the virtual AGM.
However, John Mulhern said the airport’s hands were tied with regard to schedules and it was a matter for Ryanair. The later flight times actually suited travellers from the US who wanted to get to Kerry, the airport found from feedback, but he conceded the times were not conducive for a day doing business in Dublin.
There has also been a “significant upturn” in private and chartered flights in and out of Kerry airport from Europe and the US bringing tourists, Mr Mulhern said.
Kerry Airport is still heavily dependent on Government support, receiving grant aid of over €1.8m for 2020, up from €1.27m the previous year.
The Donegal-Dublin PSO route, meanwhile, is currently being operated by Swedish carrier Amapola Flyg, which had agreed in mid-July to fly the slot until the end of the current contract in January of next year.
The actual deadline for implementation of the new routes in Donegal is February 26, 2022.
The Department of Transport’s €17m tender incorporates a ban on fares greater than €80 for 80% of passengers in a given month.
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