Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, I wish to express my absolute confidence in Mr. Henry as chair. Despite his very modest assertion that he is not an aviation expert, he brings a wealth of experience to the position and has demonstrated that today in his presentation.

We all come with competing interests in terms of Cork, Dublin and Shannon, but we should operate in the realm of policy change, as Mr. Henry said. He spoke about the issue of route patterns changing. How can we build route density? Part of the difficulty with airlines is that they vote by passenger loads and incentivisation to use an airport. Ultimately, because Dublin Airport is a hub destination and meeting point for the north, south, east and west, it is a place for people outside of the State to connect. It is a connectivity airport as well. How can capacity be built in the context of route density and route patterns changing? It is not just about Government aviation policy. It is about the policy of airlines. We have seen, in a post-pandemic context, Aer Lingus's policy towards short-haul connectivity. It has literally abandoned, to a great extent, its short-haul operations in Europe.