A service taken for granted by travellers elsewhere will finally be delivered to the north-west this summer. From July airports in Sligo and Donegal will offer an early-morning flight to Dublin with a return flight late in the evening.
Business people in Sligo have long complained that the airport was not meeting their needs because it was not possible to travel to Dublin, do a day's work and return that evening. Until now the first departure was in mid-morning, and the last return in the afternoon. The service was seen primarily as one for the leisure traveller.
An announcement of who will be awarded the contract to service the regional airports is due in 10 days. The current carrier, Aer Arann, is among those tendering for it. Built into the contract, however, is an obligation to run an early-morning departure with late evening return.
It is expected that the flight from Sligo will depart between 7 a.m. and 7.30 a.m., with a second departure in the early afternoon. Return flights will leave Dublin at lunchtime and at 7.20 p.m. The new timetable will come into effect on July 22nd.
The manager of Sligo airport, Mr Joe Corcoran, said he believed passenger numbers would increase considerably as a result. This had been shown in busier regional airports like Galway and Kerry. The new flight times would also allow travellers to connect on to flights to Britain and return the same day.
Mr Corcoran said that even though the new service had not been advertised yet, people were already trying to book flights. Tour operators from Germany and Switzerland had also reacted positively, as connections had proved a problem in the past.
Passenger numbers this year were already up 20 per cent on last year's 24,000. The aim was to reach 30,000 this year. There had been improvements in the quality of the service, and Aer Arann, which uses a 48-seater ATR42 aircraft, had also been running successful promotions, he said.
Mr Corcoran said the benefit of the airport to Sligo could not be measured simply in terms of the flights available. A number of companies had located in the area because of the airport, and he also hoped it could be used in future gas exploration off the Mayo coast. "The capital investment put into the airport has been more than given back many, many times over," he said.
The terminal at Sligo airport is to be extended this year to allow for increased security in baggage-handling to meet international regulations.