Cullen lets airlines call shots while passengers are blowing in the wind

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen is not known as a penny-pincher, certainly not where the taxpayer’s money is concerned.

He likes to travel and knows an exclusive tropical resort when he lands on one, and while this column is not about public relations contracts, his travels are relevant.

Because he is a seasoned traveller, the minister is familiar with airports and takes air bridges for granted. They're the tunnel-like things that keep passengers dry and protected from the wind when they're walking to and from the aircraft to the terminal.

At Cork International Airport, passengers do not take air bridges for granted, for the simple reason that there is none.

That's why, when the new multi-million euro terminal was being designed years ago, they were included as part of the development.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that air bridges are an essential element of an airport, especially one that was recently re-designed to cater for its growing success.

Mr Cullen is clearly not a rocket scientist, but then he never claimed to be one, as far as I know.

After decades of windblown departures and rain-laden arrivals, passengers and staff were anticipating the air bridges, but Mr Cullen had hardly opened the ministerial door in the Department of Transport when he decided that Cork International Airport did not need them.

Actually, he didn't decide. The minister for transport let a couple of airlines decide for him. Dictate, would be a better word to describe it.

In response to a question in the Dáil from Fine Gael's David Stanton, the minister said the bridges were not included in the current work. He said the main airlines using Cork Airport did not support the provision of air bridges, as envisaged in the original plans.

"Accordingly, the current works do not provide for air bridges." So be it.

The airlines spoke, the minister jumped. Initially, the new facilities were to have cost in the region of E153m. But when they will be opened in the first quarter of next year there will be a budget overrun of something like E15m. Given the value of the airport in terms of business, tourism and employment both direct and indirect to the southern region, it's still reasonable.

The four air bridges costing E2m or E500,000 each are insignificant in the cost scheme of things. But the minister did not blame the extra few budgetary millions for scrapping them.

If he did, he would have been the first minister in this Government to have been worried about a cost overrun.

It's a pity he didn't listen when other experts told him to forget about e-voting when he was environment minister.

Because Aer Lingus (which demanded the bridges originally) and Ryanair do not approve, most of the three million passengers who will pass through the airport this year will have to put up with the wind and rain. I say most passengers, because obviously the bulk of the three million will hardly be going or coming on the same two or three days of our normal summer.

In fact, it's probably the only airport in the world where you would be advised to pack an umbrella for the return journey from a sun holiday.

Obviously, the airlines' sole concern is money, not the convenience and comfort of their passengers.

I don't know what proportion of passengers going through Cork Airport have disabilities, but the number must be considerable. At the moment, like everybody else, they have to make a trek from the terminal and possibly put up with wind, rain and noise, depending on the day, to reach their aircraft.

Unlike everybody else, when they do reach the plane, disabled passengers suffer indignity, and possible injury, if a lift or hoist has to be used to help them gain access to the aircraft. They face a similar experience on the way back.

An air bridge would save them all of that. What the minister did not take into consideration, and the airlines couldn't care less about, was that the new terminal was designed for air bridges and, without them, passengers would have to negotiate about 30 steps on their way to and from the aircraft.

FOR the sake of a miserable E2m all that hassle could be a thing of the past.

But now, almost at the end of the transition period, when Cork Airport will have its own authority and not be answerable to Dublin, the budget overrun is seen as a problem. Intriguingly, what has been scrapped for the moment is the one thing it badly needs: the air bridges.