Ryanair chief urges Government to extend airline supports

Eddie Wilson made the plea as he announced the reopening of Ryanair's Cork base

Twenty routes out of Cork Airport were announced by Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson. Picture: Dan Linehan

The CEO of Ryanair has urged the Government to extend airline supports at Dublin Airport beyond next summer as he announced the reopening of the airline's Cork base and the restoration of routes to pre-pandemic levels.

Eddie Wilson was speaking in Cork Airport yesterday as he confirmed that Ryanair's base, which closed last October, will reopen with two aircraft from December 1, serving 12 routes for the winter season including Alicante, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Gdańsk, Lanzarote, Liverpool, London Gatwick, Luton, and Stansted, Malaga, Poznan, and Tenerife.

From next March, its summer 2022 route network will expand to 20 destinations across Britain, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain.

The network includes new services to Birmingham and Edinburgh which are unserved following the collapse of Stobart Air. Decisions on flight frequencies are awaited.

Mr Wilson said the decision to reopen its Cork base represents an investment of almost €200m, will secure 60 Ryanair jobs and deliver thousands of tourism jobs in the region.

Traffic recovery scheme

He said the decision follows months of talks with the daa-owned airport, which has extended its traffic recovery scheme to the end of October 2022.

He said Ryanair has now restored its traffic to pre-pandemic levels for summer 2022 in Cork, Shannon, Knock, and Kerry airports.

However, he warned that Dublin Airport could see a 35% drop in Ryanair’s pre-pandemic passenger levels unless the Government extends the Covid-19 travel recovery scheme there to October 2022.

“This will ensure Ryanair and other carriers can restore Dublin traffic to 100% of pre-pandemic levels and prevent the migration of jobs and aircraft elsewhere in Europe," he said. 

He said there is a lot of pent-up demand for international travel, and while business is beginning to return, with strong bookings, to the UK in particular, Ryanair is still some way from profitability.

“We will have 225m guests by 2026. We have the aircraft, we’re the only ones that are growing, all airlines went through horrendous times.

“Last year we lost almost €1bn. We are slowly making our way back. We are some way away from profitability but we are prepared and ready to go.

We have said to Government — look, we’re an island nation, we need connectivity. You have two well-capitalised airlines in Ireland, put in an incentive that gets airlines to commit.

“Dublin has a scheme, with the funding provided by the Government, which ends in June. You need to fund a scheme in Dublin so it stretches to October 2022.

“An airport without passengers is a building.” 

Cork Airport managing director Niall MacCarthy said he was thrilled with the Ryanair announcement.

“They are long-standing business partners of Cork Airport. They are demanding, they’re right to be demanding, but we are delighted to be here today to announce the reopening of the base,” he said.

Cork Chamber CEO Conor Healy said Ryanair’s announcement was a huge vote of confidence in the region which would allow Cork to build on the momentum and success it was experiencing prior to the pandemic.

“It is essential now that Government continues to robustly support Cork Airport through the traffic recovery support scheme and marketing funding,” he said.  

Work on the full reconstruction of Cork’s main runway is continuing, with fresh reassurances yesterday that the airport will reopen to commercial air traffic from November 22.