Is the West really awake?

The extent of the passion expressed by many in the West of Ireland to the Aer Lingus move from Shannon to Belfast is rather surprising given the relatively modest scale of the disruption compared to the implications for the West of what is really going on in Irish aviation and at Dublin Airport in particular.

We are told that the Shannon to Heathrow service had 360,000 customers a year. Dublin Airport is planning to expand its capacity from the current 23 million passengers per annum (mppa) to 60 mppa by building a new runway and terminals. That is about one hundred times the expected Shannon loss of passengers. Where are those 37 million extra passengers to come from? All over Ireland, including the West, of course. Shannon and other regional airports will have no chance to compete with a Dublin Airport of the planned scale. It will become a black hole sucking in all aviation business in the country and adding hugely to the imbalanced
development of the regions. It is laughable that we are told by the DAA that its plans are wholly consistent with our National Spatial Strategy. We are also told it will create lots of jobs in Fingal, where they are least needed, but not told it will destroy thousands of jobs elsewhere, like the West, where they are badly needed.

This expansion at Dublin Airport is driven by an anti-competitive public subsidy. The DAA is proud of the fact that Dublin Airport, at EUR6.34 per passenger, has the lowest passenger charge of all major airports in Europe, at less than 50 per cent of the European average charge. What else is so cheap in Celtic Tiger Ireland? It is cheap because Dublin Airport does not charge for use of the 2,500 acres of public land it occupies. This land is worth at least EUR2 million an acre so that passengers should be paying about EUR16 more per trip to use it. Other Irish airports, public or private, can never compete with Dublin Airport with this massive taxpayer subsidy. If the subsidy continues and with it the explosive and unsustainable growth of Dublin Airport, it is hard to see Shannon even surviving as an airport. It is a pity the West is not awake to what is really going on. See: www.norunway.com for more.