A QUICK look at Ryanair’s timetable for flights to Kerry and Cork suggests that the low fares airline had little interest in making a success of the domestic routes, which it scrapped earlier this week.
A businessperson looking to fly to Cork for a meeting next Monday would have to fly down on Sunday evening and return early Tuesday morning. Add two nights hotel to that time investment and no wonder motorway travel is luring passengers away.
Similarly, a leisure traveller who fancies a break in Kerry this weekend, would need to head for the airport at lunchtime today and be back in the capital for Sunday lunch. Not the kind of scheduling we’ve come to expect from “the world’s favourite airline”.
Ryanair got the Kerry route after winning a tender process for the State subsidies that attach to it. Aer Arann had previously operated flights from the capital to Farranfore.
When Ryanair first began the Cork-Dublin route, it went head to head with the regional airline, resulting in a greater consumer choice. But, once Aer Arann was sent packing, Ryanair started to pare back its timetable.
Aer Arann founder Padraig O’Ceidigh is on the record as saying Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary wants to put him out of business.
The casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that rivalry clouded O’Leary’s normally crystal clear vision when it came to the operation of his Irish regional routes.
Whatever the cause, the real losers this week were the customers at Cork and Kerry airports who await a useable service to the capital.