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The government is under increasing pressure to lift restrictions on air travel due to the coronavirus that has crippled the aviation and tourism industry and is costing the state’s two largest airports around 1 million euros. euros per day.
Yesterday faced a wave of calls from TD, airports and travel agents, as well as business leaders from the South and West, for restrictions to be eased to facilitate international air travel ahead of today’s Covid-subcommittee meeting. 19 of the cabinet. today.
Junior Transportation Minister Hildegarde Naughton said the group will explore whether the introduction of pre-flight Covid-19 testing can provide an alternative to the restrictions and allow the reopening of international air travel.
It comes as Dalton Philips, director of the Dublin Airport Authority, which manages Dublin and Cork airports, said the company’s losses are approaching 150 million euros so far this year.
“We have to make the country work again. We need to balance the different interests between health and the economy, but right now we are strangling the country, ”he said.
Cork Chamber said decisions must be made to support the return of credible passenger volume levels on key trade and tourist routes, including passenger testing.
“The European Commission has now set a clear direction for a common approach to travel between member states,” said Chamber Executive Director Conor Healy.
“The Government must provide its support while this proposal is transferred to the European Council and press for urgent progress on equivalent international agreements.”
His calls were echoed by camera groups in the Midwest amid fears for the future of Shannon Airport.
The Chambers of Ennis, Galway, Limerick and Shannon called on Transport Minister Eamon Ryan to establish a new model of aviation in Ireland.
Cork airport management has now convened a ‘crisis briefing’ for Oireachtas members to outline the scale of the threat it faces amid the pandemic and in the wake of Ryanair’s threat to close its bases at airports in Cork and Shannon unless the government relaxes its quarantine. restrictions on passengers flying into the country.
If the threat materializes, 35 pilots and 95 cabin crew would be forced to take unpaid leave from the end of October.
The move would virtually eliminate Cork’s already decimated passenger traffic, which has plunged 95% during the shutdown.
Ryanair accounted for around 80% of the airport’s traffic during the coronavirus crisis, surpassing Aer Lingus as the airport’s largest airline for the first time in the airport’s 59-year history.
Of the six flights that departed from Cork airport on Tuesday, five were operated by Ryanair. It is understood that only one in three seats aboard the 189-seater plane is filling up.
In an interview with the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation yesterday, Mr. Philips described the impact of Covid-19 on business as “devastating”.
Approximately 3.5 million passengers passed through Dublin Airport in August 2019. That number dropped to 500,000 last month, from an average throughput of 100,000 people per day in August 2019 to 16,500 daily passengers last month.
He warned that passenger traffic might not recover to 2019 levels for three to four years.
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