Let us undo the damage done by Aer Rianta
The Aer Rianta board delivered a regime at Dublin airport which the aviation regulator previously confirmed was 50% more inefficient than the best of its peers. The board wasted over €1 million of taxpayers’ money on perks and pay-offs to various members of the board and top management.
The last 10 years of the Aer Rianta board’s mismanagement of our airports also included the following (and this is not an exhaustive list)
Airport charges doubled as profits collapsed from almost €40m in 1994 to just €20m in 2003;
Aer Rianta wasted hundreds of millions of euro on facilities that airlines didn’t want and customers don’t use at Dublin and Cork airport;
They sued their own regulator costing millions in legal fees, a bill footed by Irish taxpayers;
The €140m gold-plating at Cork airport achieved what a similar sized airport in Germany did for €11m.
They provided third-rate facilities at Dublin airport, ridiculous queues and car-parks that are miles away from the terminal building
Aer Rianta’s major contribution to Shannon has been to pollute the estuary for many years with raw sewage
Aer Rianta stood idly by and failed to implement its own contingency plan, while Ireland’s main international airport was closed on two separate occasions earlier this year.
The demise of the failed and discredited Aer Rianta monopoly will not be enough to kick-start Irish tourism and neither will a plan by Dublin Airport Authority for a €130m ‘Cartier’ runway at Dublin airport.
We don’t need it. London’s Gatwick Airport has one runway for 30 million passengers per annum (almost twice that of Dublin airport). What Dublin urgently needs, and what customer airlines and the entire tourism and hospitality sector are calling for, is competing independent terminals. Why won’t the Government urgently implement the development of second and third competing terminals at Dublin?
It has been two years since the Government received 13 expressions of interest for competing terminals without any progress. This was, and is, a key commitment in the current coalition’s programme for government.
A second (or third) competing terminal will create a minimum of 5,000 new jobs at Irish airports. If a low-cost terminal is built, Ryanair will base another 10 new aircraft in Dublin, will open a range of new, low-fare routes from Europe into Ireland and will deliver an additional five million passengers annually for Irish tourism.
Paul Fitzsimmons
Head of Communications
Ryanair
Dublin Airport
