This article is from page 2 of the 2011-08-02 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
BOTH Aer Lingus and Ryanair have been challenged to ‘put-up’ or ‘shutup’ when it comes to blaming the controversial government travel tax for any lack of growth in Shannon Airport.
Fianna Fáil transport spokesperson Timmy Dooley fired a volley across the two airlines this week when backing the Fine Gael/Labour coalition move to leave the € 3 travel tax in place until next year, at the earliest.
Speaking to The Clare People this week, Deputy Dooley said that the airlines have failed to live up to the promise of delivering extra passenger growth, after the Fianna Fáil/Labour government slashed the travel tax from € 10 to € 3 in last December’s budget.
“If the airlines are serious, they made a lot of noise about the imposition of the tax day one and the impact it had on passenger numbers,” said Deputy Dooley.
“There is now an opportunity for them to live up to their responsibilities and to prove that the tax was an inhibitor to passengers travelling and passenger growth.
“If the airlines are to have confidence in their own statements, then they should have no problem in identifying where the increase in passenger numbers are going to come from.
“Ryanair maintained that the € 10 tax prevented them from expanding – they used it as a reason why they re- duced their activity out of Shannon.
“One would have to believe that if you were to remove the tax then business would come back, but that is clearly not happening. Even when it was reduced from € 10 to € 3 there was little or no increase in activity,” the Fianna Fáil frontbench spokesperson added.
The controversial levy had been due to be abolished as part of the government’s bid to boost tourism numbers. However, Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar has claimed airlines had not made enough commitments in terms of increasing flight capacity.
“What I’m looking for from airlines is some solid propositions as to what they’ll do in return for the reduction and it can’t happen without that.”
Earlier this year, Ryanair chief ex- ecutive Michael O’Leary claimed that removing the € 10 tax would bring six million extra visitors to Ireland annually and create 6,000 new jobs.
The European Commission had brought a legal case against the tax, but withdrew it last month when the single € 3 levy replaced an earlier two-tier system.
Ryanair currently operates to 11 destinations in Britain and mainland Europe out of Shannon. This represents over a 300 per cent cut in operations out of Shannon from a high of 35 flights in 2008.
The airline began reducing its Shannon-based aircraft in February 2009, with the biggest axe falling in March of 2010 when it slashed 16 flights for its schedule.