Ryanair and IWAK launch summer and winter schedule

Ryanair and IWAK launch biggest ever summer and winter schedule


Neill O’Neill

Ireland West Airport Knock (IWAK), in partnership with Ryanair, officially launched the airline’s biggest ever summer and winter schedules from the airport in Knockranny House Hotel in Westport last week
This year, Ryanair will fly to a record 16 destinations from Ireland West Airport Knock and for the first time carry a milestone of 580,000 passengers from the airport – an 11 percent increase on their 2013 figures.
There was also more reason for cheer for the airport, with Deputy John O’Mahony, who chaired a study group on the future of the airport, saying at the launch that he is confident that their findings that the airport needs an investment of €36 million over ten years will be implemented.
Ryanir’s Head of Sales and Marketing, Peter Bellew, described IWAK as ‘one of the best regional airports on the planet’, and said it can be the engine for new development in the local economy.
He said the passion for the airport that was evident in Monsignor Horan’s time also exists with the current management and staff, and the ‘region now needs to get behind the airport and be the wind under its wings’.
Speaking about Ryanair’s recent transformation into a customer friendly airline, he also spoke of the recently launched services to Glasgow, Kaunas and Eindhoven, and revealed that in addition, Ryanair has increased capacity by 20 percent on their London Luton and Stansted services from IWAK, adding in 50,000 new seats this year.
Joe Gilmore, Managing Director, Ireland West Airport Knock, welcomed the Ryanair team to Westport, and revealed that Mayo is IWAK’s biggest market with over 100,000 passengers from the county using the airport annually, with a further 150,000 visitors from overseas using the airport to visit the Mayo region each year.
He added that the airport has 150 staff employed directly, with another 60 on site through car hire companies and other associated businesses, 99 per cent of flights on time, €14 million of turnover in 2013 and adds 900,000 bed nights to the region and a spend of €133 million annually, also supporting 900 jobs in the region.
Despite growth of five percent on last year however, IWAK still has 30 percent capacity on flight to fill and they hope to grow passenger numbers to 1.3 million and double the tourism spend in the region to €260 million. Ireland West Airport Knock currently has debt of €10 million, and received only €500,000 of a subvention from the exchequer last year.