Just the ticket as Kerry backs its airport

WHEN COVID-19 threatened to close Kerry Airport, and competitors placed a question mark over its State-subsidised route to Dublin, the local community stepped in to keep it alive.

A campaign to buy airline tickets that would never be used began as a personal gesture by Kerry Airport chief executive John Mulhern but would eventually see hundreds of locals buy tickets.

Mulhern feared that the Government might halt the Passenger Service Obligation (PSO) subsidy that helps fund the Kerry to Dublin flight. He also wanted to show support to operator Stobart Air.

He used his own credit card to pay for tickets, a picture of which he posted on LinkedIn and Facebook: “Tell me I’ve lost it, but today I bought a day return ticket from Kerry to Dublin although I have no intention of flying,” he wrote.

He had bought the tickets because he was “so appreciative it’s still flying to support the region for emergency connectivity and secondly because I’m remaining positive and looking to the future and our recovery.”

He feared any halt to the PSO would be hard to reverse and would have “a colossal impact” on the airport and on local business and tourism.

His posts sparked huge reaction and locals began buying tickets. Flights with two or three passengers suddenly had 20 or 30 bookings, helping keep the airport open.

Mulhern told the Sunday Independent that the campaign was spurred on by reports in March that the Government was keeping PSO services “under review” after the three State-owned airports, Dublin, Cork and Shannon, had called for cuts to regional airport funding.

“At a time when things are so bad, solidarity is what is needed,” he said. “It is not a time for the big guns to drag what is left of the traveling public out of the regional airports to satisfy their own needs. They must look at their own business models and look at how they can downsize to meet whatever the future of air travel looks like. You know, that is what I’m doing and it is what they should do.”