The chief executive of Ryanair, Mr Michael O'Leary, has said that while Irish tourism "is in the toilet", his airline could rescue the sector in just 12 months, given the right facilities at Dublin airport.
Mr O'Leary told the airline's annual general meeting in Dublin yesterday that the problem was not rising prices within the State but rather limited low-cost access for would-be tourists to Ireland. He said a second terminal at Dublin airport, catering for low-cost carriers such as Ryanair, was essential if the sector was to be rescued.
Ryanair believes it will carry two million passengers to its new base at Frankfurt-Hahn in its first year of operation. Mr O'Leary said his airline could bring that kind of growth to Dublin if it was facilitated by the Government and Aer Rianta.
Despite intense coverage of rising prices, Mr O'Leary said the Republic was still very price competitive with other European countries. "The only difference between Ireland and Aer Rianta and places like Brussels-Charleroi, Frankfurt-Hahn . . . London-Luton, where EasyJet are deriving huge growth, is that lower fares are stimulating massive transport tourism visitor numbers in the aftermath of foot- and-mouth and 9/11," he said.
"The reason why Ireland is missing out on this is because we still haven't worked out that people want lower access costs to this country. We have the biggest low-fares airline in Europe in this country and all we do is force it to put new aircraft and new routes with low fares somewhere else."
Mr O'Leary told the meeting he had already put a proposal to Aer Rianta, Dublin, which would involve Ryanair deploying five additional aircraft to Dublin airport next year, laying on new routes for an extra two million passengers per annum and creating 250 jobs in the process.
In return the no-frills carrier wanted "efficient, low-cost facilities", but this proposal had been dismissed, he said.
Aer Rianta has applied for planning permission for an extension to its existing facilities to cater for low-cost carriers but Ryanair has objected to this proposal. Ryanair has also approached Aer Rianta, Shannon, with a proposal involving an extra aircraft being deployed at Shannon, bringing in 250,000 new passengers per annum. However, almost a month later, Aer Rianta has yet to respond.
