Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications

Proposed Sale of Aer Lingus: (Resumed) Aer Lingus and Stobart Air

5:00 pm

Photo of Michelle MulherinMichelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That was not my phone, just to clarify. It has no coverage here, it was just a small video. I apologise.

I also apologise that I missed the first part of this meeting, I was at another meeting. I welcome everybody here. We all speak for our own regions and I am from County Mayo. We are all delighted with the first charter flight from New York to Knock. I know Aer Lingus played an important role in that coming about and Mr. Kavanagh in particular was instrumental. In reality, what are the possibilities of us having more transatlantic charter flights, even schedule flights? How feasible is that? Would Mr. Kavanagh consider it? Has he considered it as part of what he has agreed regarding this charter flight? I know the appetite exists. At the meeting last week I mentioned that, when the previous airline operated a transatlantic flight there, the route did not fail - there were other issues with that airline which caused the overall company to run into difficulty. There is a massive appetite for this route and I know so many people who used it and would look forward to using it again.

We are talking about the entire west and north-west area. We have very poor connectivity in terms of roads. If one were to draw a line from Galway up to Louth, there are no motorways, so this is a regional airport of significance. I would like Aer Lingus to expand on that. I know Deputy McNamara talked about the dangers of hubs and what that means for transatlantic traffic from Shannon, but I would like to think there could be further flights out of Knock. Perhaps Mr. Kavanagh could set out the realities of that and give it consideration.

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