McCarthy report challenged on regional airports

THE McCARTHY report focuses too much on the funding of the State’s regional airports in Waterford, Kerry, Galway, Knock, Sligo and Donegal, the chairman or Ireland West Airport (IWA) in Knock Liam Scollan has said.

The report, compiled by a committee chaired by Colm McCarthy and published earlier this month, was criticised by Mr Scollan who said it failed “to put the spotlight on the considerable level of State largesse provided to the State’s own regional airports at Cork and Shannon”.

Mr Scollan, while agreeing with the rationalisation of aviation expenditure, said the report “excludes Shannon, Cork and Dublin and the less obvious but more significant subsidies that support these airports”.

“Most people might perceive that airports like IWA Knock receive large State subsidies while airports such as Cork and Shannon operate commercially. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Knock had “not received any operational subsidy from the Government in the last three years and prior to that received very little operational aid,” Mr Scollan said. “By contrast, the two State airports and particularly Shannon benefit financially from a continuing level of State intervention which is not sustainable.”

He said free air traffic control services and facilities were provided by the Irish Aviation Authority to Dublin, Cork and Shannon which on its own would “dwarf all operational aids provided to all the other airports combined”.

Even when commercial reality hit the regional airports, “the Government will intervene to give them a dig out. Recently, for example, the Taoiseach and two Cabinet Ministers intervened to pressurise Aer Lingus to reopen its Shannon-Heathrow services.

“Aer Lingus had closed these routes for commercial reasons when the economy was booming and incredibly reopens them in the midst of a severe economic depression. The result is that Aer Lingus operate three daily services from the mid west and none serving the entire west and north west. By contrast IWA Knock has never had Government intervention of any kind and yet has won back routes it lost on purely commercial grounds.” Mr Scollan also challenged the perception that public service obligation (PSO) services to Dublin airport amounted to a huge subsidy for regional airports. The airport that benefited most from the PSO services “is Dublin airport, which receives all 14 services daily”. Mr Scollan added that the PSO service accounted for just 2.5 per cent of Knock’s traffic.