Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 3 February 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications

Proposed Sale of Aer Lingus: Discussion (Resumed)

11:00 am

Mr. Adrian Cummins:

On tourism, our aim is to be at 10 million visitors by 2020 and we need to make sure that the connectivity to the west coast is ring-fenced. We are at the 2008 level now and we need to move forward. The west coast depends on tourism. Many places are seasonal operations and they do not want to market their business by telling visitors they must fly into Dublin. They want to market their business by telling them they can fly into the closest airport. The assurance on connectivity for Cork and Shannon airports must be ring-fenced to enable major growth in our sector, especially on the west coast.