BELFAST BRIEFING: IF THE prospect of quiet departure lounges is a dream come true for the average airline passenger, imagine what a nightmare it poses for the chief executive of an airport.
Brian Ambrose of George Best Belfast City Airport knows exactly what it feels like today.
For the first time in almost a decade, low-cost airline Bmibaby will be missing from the airport’s departures and arrivals schedules.
That is because the airline, which operated 11 routes from Northern Ireland and carried more than 420,000 passengers every year, has pulled out of the airport.
Bmibaby, which gave the airport its first direct European service to and from Amsterdam and had introduced several other new European routes to Malaga, Faro and Geneva, is expected to cease operating in September.
But while Belfast City Airport continues to lament the sudden departure of Bmibaby – the airline only confirmed it was leaving last month – it is upbeat about the prospects of finding a replacement airline to operate some of Bmibaby’s services.
The airport said “strong advanced bookings” showed there was “significant demand” for the sunshine routes.
Ambrose is confident that within the next couple of weeks the airport will be able to confirm the arrival of “more than one new airline” to pick up where Bmibaby left off.
He hopes the new airlines will provide both domestic routes and European services to meet the demand that he says is evident in Northern Ireland.
Will Belfast City Airport be able to get new routes in place in time for the busy summer season?
Ambrose certainly hopes so.
But in the meantime a new contender could be waiting in the wings to take advantage of Belfast City Airport’s period of turbulence.
Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) has just launched its first significant advertising campaign across the North in a bid to woo more travellers to fly south of the Border.
One of the billboards in its cheeky “Dublin Makes Sense” campaign says “Give Me One Good Reason To Fly From Dublin”, and then suggests car parking from £4 (€5) a day. The aim is to persuade travellers to ditch local airports in favour of Dublin.
DAA director of strategy Vincent Harrison believes the improved road network and better facilities at Dublin airport will prove attractive to travellers coming from the North.
Harrison is also confident that Dublin airport offers a much wider range of direct services and “better connections than any of its competitors in the North”.
To be fair to Harrison, he is unlikely to encounter any argument on that point in Northern Ireland, given the fact that 62 airlines service more than 170 routes out of Dublin.
Dublin airport is also craftily highlighting to potential Northern Ireland passengers that not only can they clear US immigration on this side of the Atlantic but they could also potentially save money by flying from the South.
Under UK legislation there is a charge known as air passenger duty (APD) on all flights from UK airports.Harrison is keen to point out that APD is £13 (€16) per passenger for economy short-haul and direct long-haul services from the North, and up to £184 (€227) per passenger for premium-class seats on indirect long-haul services.
This is in contrast to the Irish Government’s air travel tax of €3 (£2.43) per passenger, which Harrison says is the same regardless of the destination or the class of seat booked.
APD is a sore point at the moment in the North. There is a major campaign under way to try to convince the UK treasury that it should be abolished or at the very least devolved to the Northern Executive.
The treasury reduced APD on the North’s long-haul routes last year to save its only direct air route to North America operated by Continental Airlines, which carries about 100,000 passengers a year between Belfast International Airport and Newark.
All airports in Northern Ireland believe APD is a major stumbling block when it comes to securing new routes and investment from airlines.
But while the passenger tax remains a bone of contention for Belfast City Airport, it says it is not too worried about Dublin Airport’s plans to entice more business and leisure travellers to fly from the South.
Belfast City Airport believes the fact that 80 per cent of the local population live within an hour’s drive of it makes it a convenient choice.
It claims the majority of its passengers would not want the “hassle” of driving to Dublin when they have an airport on their doorstep with “500 car-parking spaces, car parking for £5 a day at weekends and £30 for seven or 15 nights’ parking if you book online, and an average time of seven minutes through security search”.
Belfast International Airport, which offers chartered and scheduled flights to many European and US destinations, also believes that, aside from the APD “disparity”, local passengers like to use local airports because of the convenience factor.
A spokesman for Belfast International Airport says: “Dublin Airport has been poaching significantly more than 500,000 passengers per annum from the Northern Ireland catchment area for many years now.
“This campaign merely represents a more overt and direct approach. The facts are that the roads run in two directions. The exchange rate fluctuates in two directions and there is now a significant lobby in place in Northern Ireland to address the broad APD disparities between North and South.”
The spokesman believes the “only key motivation” which will make people drive from the North to Dublin airport is “destination choice”.
According to Belfast International Airport, if Northern Ireland airports can expand the direct range of destinations on offer, then people in the North would not “choose to make an arduous journey to and from Dublin”.
DAA has launched its first major ad campaign in the North in a bid to woo travellers
The airline, which operated 11 routes from Northern Ireland, has pulled out of the airport