The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
RYANAIR’s second-in-command, Michael Cawley, has lambasted the Government’s dismissal of an offer that the low cost airline claimed would bring another 600,000 passengers to Shannon Airport, albeit with no extra charges.
While Transport Minister Leo Varadkar has described Ryanair’s offer as “unrealistic”, the low cost carrier’s deputy chief executive and chief operating officer said terms offered to Shannon are something that dozens of European airports are glad to accept.
He also said that many airports are going one better, actually paying Ryanair to come in, because they can make a profit through non-aeronautical revenue.
Mr Cawley said the Department of Transport have had years to come up with an alternative to Ryanair bringing very large numbers of passengers to Shannon, but haven’t done anything effective, as terminal traffic has dropped to just 1.3 million.
The Ryanair proposal would see it deliver one million passengers, around 12,000 a week higher than the current figure, but pay no extra charges.
However, Minister Varadkar told The Clare Champion that such a proposal is unrealistic. “You couldn’t run an airport for free and you can’t pay staff with nothing,” he claimed.
Mr Cawley countered and accused the minister of not knowing what he was talking about.
“We’ll continue to deliver the existing traffic if that’s what they want, at the full charges, or it may marginally reduce as Shannon gets more and more uncompetitive, but we have 30 or 40 airports around Europe that are paying us. We have another 30 or 40 that are giving us free deals, including many, many privately owned airports.
“For the minister to be saying this isn’t possible means that he’s presiding over an inefficient airport at Shannon, one that can’t compete internationally and he needs to have a look at that.
“I buy from 250 airports around Europe, the minister doesn’t buy from any of them. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to airport costs. We’re the buyers here, so we know what the price of an airport like Shannon should be and, in this case, we can deliver these passengers, and get paid for them, elsewhere. We’ve shown the minister evidence of these deals elsewhere.”
