That about sums it up with regard to Cork.
I am slowly coming to the view that the Cork crowd are ambivalent about seeking new airline business for the airport - I think they dont even look on it as being a part of their remit to go after new business - if they ever did in the first place. Who knows - maybe the paymasters in the DAA have ordered them not to engage at all on the premise that all new airline business should connect through Dublin and Cork can forget it and to concentrate more on softer topics like photo exhibitions on for example, some rather dubious Cork based personalities.
Yes, on the political side of things Cork continues to be number three in the pecking order and, yes, maybe we have lost sight of that agenda which seems to be very much alive, alas. It wasn't just Mary O'Rourke - it has been all of them and is so to this day with the special arrangements which have been put in place for Shannon. I guess the CAA crowd dont care about that but it is all so disheartening for so many others whom have a passion about their airport.
Hard as it is to believe I am now rather removed from the North Atlantic fixation for Cork - suffice it to say if EI offered a summer service on, say, twice a week with the 757 to New York it would easily work but as there are no signs that will ever happen.
It is still the lack of more UK and Europe service that fails me now. Why is there no Southampton now - it would be a banker with Flybe; why is there not some more Heathrow and third daily flights on both Birmingham and Manchester. Why no Switzerland which should deliver respectable yield and pretty good ancillary sales in Duty Free etc.
I could go on with more but it has been said before so why bother.
More Germany, a few more Paris, a few more Amsterdam and an elusive near east route to somewhere like Istanbul.
Does the DAA now want Cork to have more business - is the status quo the way they want it with Cork people being left to patronise the midnight busses to Dublin Airport?
If so, it stinks.