A Clare Government TD says he’s confident Shannon Airport will continue to receive funding from the Regional Airports Programme throughout the lifetime of the current Government.
It comes after Ryanair has told the Oireachtas Transport Committee it ‘can and will do more’ at Shannon over the coming years.
Ryanair will begin flying to new routes such as Porto, Naples, Newcastle and Beziers from Shannon in 2023.
It opened its first aircraft heavy maintenance facility in Ireland at Shannon earlier this year in a 10 million euro investment, creating 200 jobs in the process.
Representatives from the airline have been telling the Oireachtas Transport Committee it intends to ‘do more’ in the Midwest region in the future.
However, the head of Ryanair says there’s a ‘limit’ to how much traffic it will be able to operate out of Shannon Airport, particularly in the winter months.
Ryanair’s CEO has been telling the Committee its base at Shannon potentially opens up access to over 200 airports from the Midwest.
Eddie Wilson says ‘certainty’ is key for the airline to grow in Shannon in the medium to long term.
Shannon has been in receipt of funding from the Government’s Regional Airport Programme, which provides support to airports with fewer than one million passengers.
However, Ryanair is projecting passenger numbers to spike massively at Shannon approaching 2027’s Ryder Cup, putting this future funding in doubt.
Clarecastle-based Fine Gael TD Joe Carey, who’s a member of the Transport Committee, believes a proposal to extend the funding to airports with less than three million passengers will come to fruition by next year.
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