Department must ensure airports stay open

IT is now 12 weeks since the last threatened closure of our main international airport and still the Department of Transport has done absolutely nothing to put an effective contingency plan in place to keep the runways open.

This plan is being “urgently addressed” by the civil servants in the department since March 18, but evidently 12 weeks is not too “urgent” in the hallowed halls of Aer Rianta’s downtown offices at the department.

The Aer Rianta unions are again threatening to disrupt the travel plans of countless thousands of ordinary passengers at Dublin Airport if they don’t get their way, and still the department stands idly by.

How much longer do we have to wait for the department and the Aer Rianta monopoly to actually do something on behalf of Irish consumers and visitors, and put an effective contingency plan in place to keep our airports and runways open?

Paul Fitzsimmons,

Head of Communications,

Ryanair,

Dublin Airport.