The Mayor of Limerick has hit out at the country’s “lopsided” aviation policy after he spent nearly 24 hours travelling from his home to Toulouse.
John Moran posted about his experience on social media and told Lunchtime Live it “resonated like no other tweet I’ve ever sent”.
Since then it has been viewed 135,000 times and Mr Moran believes it demonstrates an appetite for radical change to the country’s aviation policy.
“It was the saga of the trip from Limerick to Toulouse showing up a lot of issues that people across Ireland have really been concerned about,” he said.
“Which is the over concentration of our flights in Ireland into one airport which meant that I effectively had almost a 24 hour trip because of the early morning flight to Toulouse.”
There is something seriously wrong with the idea of increasing flights from an airport with this severe overcrowding while leaving millions of capacity unused in Cork and Shannon. Why does the Irish system require me to travel from #limerick last night for a 7am flight this… pic.twitter.com/pQ3Qht0WUg
— John Moran, Mayor of Limerick (@moranjohna1) August 18, 2024
Mr Moran said he would much rather have flown from Shannon to Toulouse - a French city which he claims has “very many similarities with our own city of Limerick” - but there is currently no direct flight.
“One option was to go via Shannon to another town about two or three hours away or alternatively to go to Dublin,” he said.
“But the flight’s at seven in the morning, so you’re either looking at a through the night bus up to the airport - because you can never get parking in Dublin Airport anyway - or you go up the night before and for many people that means additional costs for a hotel to get these early morning flights.”
When he arrived at Dublin Airport, the flight was delayed which Mr Moran feels is a “symptom of the pressure Dublin Airport is under.”
“The end game was it’s a 24 hour [journey],” he said.
“It’s one thing if you’re going on holidays… but if you’re going for business and stuff like that, this just doesn’t work for an island that depends on connectivity.”
Passenger cap
Dublin Airport Authority has submitted a planning application to Fingal County Council, asking for the current annual passenger cap to be lifted from 32 million to 40 million.
If the planning application is granted, it would see the number of flights in and out of Dublin increase by a third.
However, Mr Moran believes this could further undermine regional airports.
“We can’t just be thinking that by raising the cap in Dublin Airport that that’s the solution to everything,” he said.
“We essentially have a lopsided aviation policy with lots of unutilised capacity in airports in the west and no capacity in Dublin.
“If we could just take people away from Dublin then it would get better for the people in Dublin as well.”
According to CSO data, in the third quarter of last year, Dublin Airport handled 83% of flights to and from Ireland.
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Main image: Dublin Airport. Picture by: Peter Titmuss / Alamy Stock Photo
