TWENTY-FIVE years after it was opened, Ireland West Airport yesterday remembered some of its early visitors, when it forecast its best year to date.
Founded by the late Msgr James Horan a quarter of a century ago, the airport outside Charlestown, Co Mayo, has long lost its “foggy boggy” image and hopes to achieve a new “high” of 640,000 passengers this year.
It serves 25 international destinations and hosts four of Europe’s major air carriers – Ryanair, Aer Lingus, flybe and bmibaby. April of this year was its busiest month on record.
In 2009 is recorded a profit of €16,500 before tax, and received a State operational expenditure subvention of €445,000. Last year, it broke even, and was awarded €356,000 in operational expenditure last July.
Msgr Horan was parish priest at the popular pilgrimage centre of Knock when he proposed the idea and secured the support of Charles Haughey. Some £10 million in funding was approved, but there was a setback when Fianna Fáil lost the 1984 general election.
To make up a £4 million shortfall, the monsignor initiated a lottery, or “jumbo draw”, eliciting support from Irish emigrants in North America and Australia.
“With a runway long enough to land large aircraft, Monsignor Horan, its charismatic founder, was able to charter the first flight to Rome in 1985,” the airport recalled yesterday.
“Sadly, the monsignor passed to his eternal reward in 1986 while on a pilgrimage in Lourdes, but the visionary project he had started was to continue on its eventful, challenging and defiant journey to even better things.”
Some 100,000 passengers were using the airport by 1988, and Ryanair’s arrival secured its future. Ryanair now flies 12 routes to and from Knock and is set to record its four millionth passenger there.
Progress was not without some hiccups. During his term as minister for tourism, Enda Kenny secured €66,000 in marketing funds at a difficult time. “Its great advantage is the length of its runway, which allows it to handle large aircraft,” Mr Kenny told this newspaper in February 1999.
The airport came of age over the last decade, when it achieved CAT 11 landing status, with modern equipment allowing it to land aircraft in poor weather and low visibility conditions.
A recent Western Development Commission report, which advised against any closure of Galway and Sligo airports, noted that Knock contributed to enterprise and tourism development in the region.
Both Galway and Sligo, which are already set to lose subsidised public service obligation routes, may also lose State operational subventions, Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar has indicated.
“To understand the phenomenon that is popularly known as Knock airport, you have to see it as not just a place and an airport but a state of mind,” Ireland West Airport chairman Liam Scollan said.
“We are now the fourth largest airport in the State and have 40 per cent share of the British market from the west of Ireland. Provided we continue to have that spirit there will be a good future,” Mr Scollan added.
