Busiest year ahead for Ireland West Airport
By Tom Gillespie
THIS summer business at Ireland West Airport is set to take off at an all time high, with record numbers of passengers expected to jet off from the base.
The managing director at the airport, Mr. Joe Gilmore, said 2023 was also a record year where they catered for a massive 818,000 passengers - an increase of 13 per cent.
“It was the best year the airport has ever had,” he commented, adding: “We came out of 2022 strongly where we had about nine months after Covid. We didn’t expect the massive demand for travel but there was a pent up demand for travel because it was cut off. It continued in 2023 and it resulted in us having the strongest year ever.”
The highlights of the year were the visit of US President Joe Biden in April and the launch of the new Aer Lingus Heathrow service in the same month, making it a ‘momentous year’.
Mr. Gilmore continued: “The Biden visit was the highlight of the year. It will be hard to beat that - so we have had the Pope and the American President arrive here, which is going to be hard to beat.
“The US visit was a tremendous few weeks for the airport and it all went off smoothly. It is a pity that people like Monsignor James Horan and Joe Kennedy weren’t around to see it.”
On continued investment at the facility, he set out: “We undertook a lot of capital improvements around the place, which people would not see. We spent over €6 million in terms of capital expenditure. Those projects included a €10 million upgrade of the electrical infrastructure of the airport over the past three years. The infrastructure here was 40 years old and needed replacing.
“We added a new fire tender so we will have one of the most modern fleets of fire tenders come next year in terms of the airports across the country.
“Probably the biggest advancement was the installation of the new next-generation cabin baggage screening system, which speeds up the process for passengers.”
He said the challenges that are facing any small business are the costs, adding: “All businesses have major pressure on costs - insurance, electricity, power, utility, local authority rates, etc., in which we are seeing significant increases in all those areas.
“We have about 180 staff and probably another 50 to 60 between the airlines, car companies, emigration, Met office, and indirectly we have contractors employed by the airport. At any point there could be 50 to 100 contractors also employed carrying out capital or improvement works.
“We are a substantial employer and we are pumping quite a bit back into the local economy.”
He continued: “The coming year is going to be busy and at this point in time we expect to be over 800,000 passengers.
“We have a strong route network and we have our busiest summer coming up. Frequencies have been tweaked on some routes, there is more capacity on some routes like Faro in Portugal. We have no new services being introduced this year but there is added capacity to existing services.
“There are challenges out there. The leisure market is very strong but the business side of it has not recovered as strongly.
“There is the possibility of challenges in the UK market and that is something we are watching closely.”
Some of the projects carried out during 2023 included the opening of a new Sláinte Barista Cafe and the enhancement of the ShopWest retail shop, the cabin baggage screening, further runway works and improved car parking facilities.
Mr. Gilmore added: “We became the first airport in the country to be members of the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower programme that looks to assist people with disabilities, where they wear a sunflower.
“One other big area we have made advancements in is the Airport Accreditation Programme for Sustainability.
“It is a five level programme. Two years ago we achieved level one and we received level two in November - a commitment to be nett zero by 2050 and to have a reduction of 55 per cent by 2030. We have electrified all the vehicles on airside and all our lighting is LED.
“We are in a good position in that we have two major airline customers in Aer Lingus and Ryanair and they are very solid customers and they are very loyal to the airport over the years.
“Likewise, we have a very loyal customer base and we acknowledge that support we get across the region.”
Passenger numbers traveling on services to and from the UK totalled 665,000 in 2023, boosted by the commencement of a new daily service to London Heathrow, which provides onward connectivity to 80 plus destinations worldwide.
Ryanair, he said, recorded its busiest ever year for passenger numbers at the airport, carrying over 730,000 passengers, a three per cent increase on 2022, with record numbers using their services to and from Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester in the UK.
The number of passengers traveling on services to mainland and Continental Europe hit a new high for the airport, with 148,000 passengers traveling to and from Alicante, Barcelona, Faro, Majorca, Malaga, Milan, Cologne, Lanzarote and Tenerife, which represented a seven per cent increase on 2022 figures.
Last year Ireland West Airport staff presented a cheque for €40,000 to the airport's six staff nominated charities for 2023 - Breakthrough Cancer Research, Diabetes Ireland, the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Cancer Fund for Children, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and the Mayo Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This year’s recipients will be announced shortly.
Over the course of 2023 several events took place, with Ireland West Airport employees getting involved to support the six charities. The most successful fundraiser in 2023 was the annual Portwest 5km Runway Run, which saw over 1,000 people take to the airport's runway in glorious sunshine in September.