Waterford Airport to be expanded
As the Irish aviation industry recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, officials at Waterford Airport are optimistic of a return to commercial operations with work to extend its runway receiving a major funding boost.
Waterford Airport, like most of Ireland’s regional airports, has struggled to recover since the onset of the 2008 recession and the subsequent collapse of the privately owned regional airline, Aer Arann. The airport has handled no commercial traffic since 2016, after Belgian airline VLM Airlines ended its operations.
At its height in 2008, the airport handled 144,000 passengers, and offered services to Bordeaux, Faro, Málaga, and Amsterdam, as well as UK routes such as Birmingham, London Luton, and Manchester.
The limitations with the runway length meant that these routes could only be operated through turboprop aircraft such as the De Havilland Canada Dash 8, the ATR42, and the ATR72.
On 1 December 2023, Comer Group International, following its owners’ purchase of the airport in 2022, announced that it would invest €12 million into the airport. This investment will cover almost half of the €25 million total cost. The runway is expected to be extended by 854 metres and widened by 15 metres. The upgraded runway would therefore measure 2,287 metres long and would be 45 metres wide.
Planning permission for this project was granted by An Bord Pleanála on 4 February 2022, and was originally intended to be completed before the end of 2022.
The goal of this project is to allow for jet aircraft such as the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 to land at the airport, which could open the possibility of Ryanair (which was founded in 1985 operating a single route between Waterford and London Gatwick using a single Embraer 110) and Aer Lingus being able to establish routes from the airport.
Fine Gael Senator John Cummins, a former member of the board at Waterford Airport, welcomed the news of the investment, and said that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD “has been a vocal supporter of our goal to develop a runway in the southeast capable of servicing the main aircrafts of choice by most major airlines”.
Cummins added: “I have always believed in the ability of Waterford Airport to offer the essential direct connectivity to the region that we require to grow our business and tourism offer. The runway expansion project ticks a huge number of boxes and would undoubtedly drive the propulsive growth envisaged for Waterford in the National Planning Framework.”
