CORK

[Tom the Tenor]

Unwelcome arrival at Cork Airport

There was one hell of a letter in yesterday's edition of the Cork based broadsheet daily newspaper, Irish Examiner, from a Canadian visitor about their recent experience at Cork Airport.

I have no idea on how to create links etc so I type out in full. The letter speaks for itself:-

"Dear Sir,

We read all the time about the chaos at Dublin Airport but have you experienced the chaos at Cork Airport?

I arrived into this shamble of an airport at 9.15 pm, after walking 300m in the rain from the plane. It was dusk and hard to see equipment which was left all over the place.

Then were arrived at immigration, which had long queues out onto the ramp - with passengers all standing out in the rain.

Once inside, there are only two baggage belts, with people running from one to the other - chaos.

I sought a manager but none was available. 'He left,' I was told. I wonder why - he must have seen the chaos.

They told me they were building a new airport - I only hope it is miles away from this one. From what I saw, parking also seems to be a nightmare, and any type of planning seems to be non-existent. In addition, doors to the building were blocked by people smoking and the place was filthy.

How can people invest in Cork if its airport is so bad? I will avoid Cork Airport in the future.

Jonathan Zdilla
Lakehead University
Thunder Bay
Ontario P7B 5EI
Canada."

None of this kind of above history happens overnight. There has been decades and decades of neglect at Cork Airport. A certain kind of attitude prevailed where the place was hardly looked on as an airport at all. Nationally and locally the focus was all Shannon. Whatever Shannon wanted Shannon got.

Look at all the recent fuss at Cork about a couple of airbridges?

Cork Airport did not matter in the mindset of protecting Shannon at all costs.

Cork Airport was screwed big time.