Surely just another demonstration of the myth of low cost air travel. It's only achieved by lumping the costs on to someone else.
I don't follow. The costs are increasing because of a reduction in the low cost passengers which would seem to demonstrate that Ryanair's business reduces losses at the airport so I don't see how that is lumping the costs onto someone else.
The Belfast Telegraph article was pretty badly written, seeming to fit a particular agenda and more designed to antagonise the ill-informed rather than to inform:
On Wednesday a spokesman for the shadow council admitted that extra money had been signed off on to cover the cost of Ryanair's demands but said that only £369,000 had been agreed.
What Ryanair demands? It actually seems to be lack of demand from Ryanair that is the problem. They have pulled a flight so the airport is making less profit so additional monies are required. Nothing to do with Ryanair demands.
At a meeting held in private in the past 10 days the super council's services and transformation committee agreed to sign off on the extra money, with the bill to be added to the annual rates collections.
This is hardly news, this is the way it has always been. Where else would the extra money come from?
The forced adoption of the airport by Strabane's ratepayers has been a major bone of contention since it was first announced that the two council areas were to merge under the Review of Public Administration.
Quite so but a couple of points. Up until now Strabane has contributed nothing to the airport despite benefitting from its presence. Same goes for Limavady despite the airport being located in Limavady council area. However as a Derry rate payer my bone of contention is that whenever the airport does make a profit that these profits will accrue equally to the Strabane rate payers despite them having contributed towards the airport for 30 years less. Of course there are a lot of other problems with the amalgamation of the local councils so we just have to accept it is imperfect.
despite the fact that only 4% of the local population actually uses the terminal.
How do they work that out? So 96% of Strabane rate payers do not use the airport? Where did they get that figure? The airport handles 400,000 pax per year so presumably with Strabane not using it then everyone in Derry used it 4 times!
No doubt the people of Strabane would be happier to use one of the two airports located nearer to the newspaper's offices.