Further development of Dublin Airport would be “unfair” to the people of the county and the country’s other airports, a leading expert in aviation has claimed. 

Yesterday, Minister of State for Transport Jack Chambers announced €5.6 million of funding for 13 safety and security-related projects in regional airports. 

Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, Aer Lingus Regional founder Pádraig Ó Céidigh said the potential of regional airports has been ignored for decades.

“If you look at it nationally from an economic and socio-economic point of view,” he said. 

“It’s really important - we’re a very small island - that we get out of this country. 

“It’s unfair to Dublin, people who live in Dublin, people who commute in and out of Dublin and for people who use Dublin Airport for focusing everything, all of our eggs in one basket. 

“We need proper regional development and I believe that the regional airports - like Donegal, Kerry, Knock, Cork and Shannon - are critically important for balanced development.” 

Terminal 1 at Dublin Airport.

Dublin Airport

According to CSO data, in the third quarter of last year, Dublin Airport handled 83% of flights to and from Ireland, with Cork in second place with 8%. 

Despite the wide disparity, Mr Ó Céidigh said it is important not to discount the role of regional airports. 

"In 2023, you had approximately 1.3 million people in that year alone using Knock, Donegal and Kerry Airports,” he said. 

“It's a very, very significant number of people using them and it’s increased significantly over the years - particularly since COVID and the number of the issues that have been highlighted by Newstalk about Dublin Airport. 

“People are coming back and supporting and using their local airports a lot, lot more frequently.”

Carrickfinn Airport in County Donegal.

Mr Ó Céidigh said Donegal Airport is particularly important to the local community because of the remoteness of the county and its lack of transport link to the rest of the country. 

“It’s in the region of five hours - sometimes longer - to get to Dublin,” he said. 

“When we were operating there for Aer Lingus Regional back in the day, quite a significant number of passengers were going up and down to Dublin for medical treatment, cancer treatment and so on and so forth. 

“You don’t have any rail access there, you’ve got poor road access there and the air access is the only real access that you have if you need to connect reasonably quickly in and out of Donegal.

“Plus, they have 40,000 passengers - which is increasing a little bit year-on year; I believe if Donegal Airport had regular services to places like Glasgow and Manchester, that number would go up to in the region of 100,000.”

Dublin Airport has submitted a planning application to lift its annual passenger cap from 32 million to 40 million; if approved, it would mean a further increase in the percentage of flights in and out of Ireland handled by the DAA.

Main image: Planes are seen at Dublin Airport in April 2021. Picture by: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie