A new air of optimism at Ireland West Airport

And yes, it was dealt a near catastrophic blow when airports throughout the world and the wider aviation industry came to a complete standstill in March of 2020 as a result of Covid-19, from which they are still very tentatively recovering.

But that story is only part of a wider narrative which paints a glowing success story for an airport that decades previously had faced near insurmountable odds, in the infancy of its existence.

When first broached on the subject of challenges of the last two years, it was not routes or runways, subventions or stress that he wanted to speak of, but rather the devastation of having to let staff go, during those dark days, when none of us knew what lay ahead.

It had only been 2019 when the airport had recorded a passenger count of 800,000 plus and a turnover of some €15million.

In the normal course of events, that figure would have shot through the one million passengers figure, but it was not to be, at that time.

Last month, it was revealed that last year's passenger numbers had plummeted by 79% and that passenger numbers stood at 176,317 last year.

New air of optimism

But 2022 has brought a new air of optimism and hope, as many of the clouds of Covid have lifted.

“If you go back to February 2020, before all of this kicked off, we had just come off a record year in 2019. We had a turnover of about €15 million and we had just over 800,000 passengers going through the airport, making a small profit of about €100,000.

“So we were starting to get into a good situation. Our objective here was to get to a million passengers by this year to be honest.”

Reflecting on the closure of the airport that is located at Knock, he admitted it was a massive shock to everybody.

“I never thought that I would be closing the airport for a global pandemic. Previous to that I had closed the airport for one or two days, for the snow and the ice back in 2010, I think it was and then when the volcanic ash from Iceland that was a major concern for some days.

“The other reality was that we had to lay off staff. That was the toughest part and we laid off 90% of our staff. While at the time, we expected it to be short term, in reality there were some staff laid off for nearly two years. It was a complete devastation for the aviation sector across the country and the globe.”

Government support

Joe said that the passenger numbers fell to what they had been experiencing in the 1980s and 1990s, but it would have been much worse had it not been for government interventions.

“It’s important to acknowledge that the government’s intervention for the aviation sector and the general wage supports that were put in place for this airport were vital.

“Like a lot of businesses we would have been in a critically difficult position at the moment. We received funding under the EWSS scheme, the wage support schemes and under a Covid damages scheme for the aviation sector, so that helped to alleviate most of our losses last year. We lost over €4million in 2021 and through those schemes we were nearly able to compensate for 80-90% of those losses.

“That has allowed us now in 2022 to be in a position where we have a balance sheet with some cash in the bank, to be able to restart the business, to invest in places like marketing, group development and other things to get back to the roots,” he explained.

Key infrastructure for the region

“One of the biggest challenges at a regional level is getting national attention and focus on important pieces of infrastructure for the region and we were happy that back in 2017 with the launch of the National Development Plan, the government recognised the airport as a key transport infrastructure for the region.

“And that it was one of the State’s four main airports for economic and tourism development along the Wild Atlantic Way and the Atlantic economic corridor.”

“We have gone through a crazy period and it is great to be able to start getting back to these projects back on the table and investment streams.”

The airport MD explained that the busiest routes are to the UK market, with ten destinations to the UK. That market has rebounded very strongly in the last month, since the restrictions were lifted and extra capacity is being put in there.

“We had Flybe doing Birmingham Edinburgh and Manchester, back in 2019/2020 but they went out of business, so Ryanair have stepped in and taken over those three services, so we are seeing a big rebound in the UK with the busiest routes, our London routes with almost half the passengers that go through out airport, go to London.

“Aer Lingus will also be back in on March 13 with daily flights to destinations for the rest of the summer, this was a very good marker for the future.”

Early Stage of Recovery

Joe says that the airport is at an early stage of recovery and that is what the priority will be in the interim.

Finally, for many people in the region, he points out how travel to the Ireland West Airport at Knock can work out better on many different levels than Dublin or Belfast.

12% of overseas visitors who come through Ireland West Airport visit Longford (circa 10,000). 40% are holidaymakers, spending an average of 4 nights in the Longford region. 15,000 outbound passengers from Longford use the airport annually.

Joe added that while restrictions were lifting, things about EU Covid digital certs and what happens in the landing country remained important, when arriving at foreign destinations.

You can fly from Ireland West Airport to 19 International destinations in 2022, with 55 weekly departures. The forecasted passenger numbers for the years is circa 679,000 (85% of 2019 total).

New services have been announced to Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester with Ryanair and the frequency of services to Edinburgh, Luton, Cologne and Milan in 2022 has increased.

€400k has also been invested in an overseas marketing campaign planned with TI and Ryanair/Aer Lingus to promote the West of Ireland in overseas markets in Q1/Q2 2022.

Ireland West Airport looks set to become even more important for the region in the years and decades ahead.