In reference to strong media interest we wish to issue our response to the comment made by Micheal O’Leary regarding his description of Ireland West Knock’s future as “flaky”.

 

We are no strangers to demeaning comment on our future. It was 22 years ago when others viewed the Airport as a joke and said “it could never happen.” At least now we are elevated above the no hope zone to having “flaky” chances. Perhaps in another 20 years we might even be accused of being a “reasonably good” airport.

 

Meanwhile, our staff will simply carry on serving as best we can the circ. 800,000 people in our catchment, the 70% of people in the west, north west and midlands, who say we are their most preferred Airport to use. We’ll try to carry on providing award winning services ranking us in the top ten over hundreds of other airports in Europe to airlines like Ryanair whose own management recently commended us on achieving an “outstanding” 99% performance for on-time aircraft turn-arounds.

 

Notwithstanding the challenges ahead and in thanks to our valued customers, we have managed to increase our passenger numbers by a quarter so far this year, an increase which, in all humility, we have to regard as reasonably good and compares reasonably well when looking at general trends at other airports in the UK and Ireland.

 

In acknowledgement of our special accolade we are providing free Cadbury’s ‘Flake’ chocolate bars to our staff, including Ryanair’s own staff, at our Airport.