That was an interesting announcement from Ryanair last week that the company intended to expand its operations by creating an extra one million seats out of Ireland next year.
The company said its decision was prompted by the government’s pledge to remove the air travel tax.
The first 300,000 seats will be created out of Shannon Airport where eight new routes will be put in place.
As well as increased services to London-Stansted, the new routes will be to Berlin, Munich, Paris, Warsaw, Krakow, Faro, Fuerteventura and Nice.
It is estimated that the 300,000 new seats will generate a passenger growth of almost 15 per cent at Shannon resulting in 300 new, on-site jobs.
I wonder would Ryanair ever consider creating some of the remaining 700,000 seats out of Waterford?
Okay, our runway is too small for larger aircraft at present but there are plans afoot and surely the company can see the potential that is there.
A re-opening of a London route would be a great place to start and with their huge expertise and resources, I bet they could make a success of it.
Ryanair started at Waterford Regional Airport all those years ago and, perhaps, the time and the conditions are right for the airline to come home.