Madam, - I refer to your report of June 4th, headlined: "€140m expansion to begin immediately at Cork Airport". €140 million? Aer Rianta is doing what it does best, wasting taxpayers money!
The latest mad-cap scheme to squander money is plainly insane. The planned extension to Cork Airport, which currently has passenger traffic of 1.9 million a year, will allow growth to a new capacity of 3 million passengers a year at a proposed cost to the taxpayer of €140 million.
To put this ludicrous plan in perspective, Ryanair began flying to Frankfurt Hahn airport in 1998, taking that airport's traffic from zero then to 2.5 million passengers this year. Fraport, one of the largest airport operators in Europe, only yesterday opened a new terminal extension to its Frankfurt Hahn airport, increasing its capacity to four million passengers a year, at a cost of €11 million. Yet, Aer Rianta is proposing to spend 12 times as much, for one million fewer passengers.
It will recover this ridiculous amount with even higher costs to airlines and passengers.
How much longer will this Government tolerate the wasting of taxpayer's money by Aer Rianta? The state monopoly has lost the run of itself. But what's new? - Yours, etc.,
PAUL FITZSIMMONS, Head of Communications, Ryanair, Dublin Airport.