New €2 million fire training centre at Mayo airport

By Tom Gillespie

A NEW state-of-the-art €2 million fire training centre has been completed at Ireland West Airport.

A fire-fighting staff of 45 will be based in the facility, allowing the centre to meet the regulatory requirements in terms of fire training.

Mr. Joe Gilmore, managing director, Ireland West Airport, said: “The new fire training centre is being completed at the moment.

“It is being commissioned at the moment, with €2 million spent on it over the last two years. But it is state-of-the-art and it will bring the airport up to the modern day requirements for fire training.”

He explained: “On the fire service side, we have close to 45 trained fire staff but they also work as security and in other areas of the airport.

“We have also completed the new covered walk to aircraft last year in terms of trying to make the airport as weather-proof as possible.”

Another innovative development at the airport is the construction of a huge solar farm.

Mr. Gilmore explained: “We have a new solar farm. We got some funding towards that for a 1.4 megawatt solar farm.

“There are 2,500 solar panels being assembled and put in place.

“These will provide about 40 per cent of our power requirements and will help us meet our sustainability targets for the airport.

“On the electrification side of the airport we have acquired a number of additional electrical vehicles on the ramp bringing power to the aircraft. We have also a new set of steps.

“In addition to that there are upgrades to car parks.

“There is money being spent here all the time everywhere.”