Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Scollan and Mr. Gilmore. Mr. Scollan referred to the sustainability of numbers to make the airport viable. There are 65 weekly flights with passenger numbers amounting to almost 700,000 but the airport needs 1.5 million passengers to make it viable. Following intense growth over the past number of years, has Mr. Scollan a strategy to more than double passenger numbers to make the airport sustainable? I presume the ability to increase passenger numbers depends on his ability to attract airlines to the airport and that is chiefly done through charges. How does Knock Airport compare in this regard? If charges are evenly marginally lower, how can he expect to more than double passenger numbers in a reasonable timeframe?