Coventry Airport boss outlines plans after council U-turn
30.09.05
Bill Savage, Coventry Airport's boss, today outlined plans to double passenger numbers and increase the choice of UK and European destinations from the midlands airport over the next three years. The announcement includes new flights to popular sunshine destinations such as Tenerife, and to short break destinations such as Dublin and Munich.
His comments follow an emergency meeting of Warwick District Council's planning committee this week, at which members approved a permanent passenger terminal at Coventry Airport (see this earlier coventry airport news story). The council was the last local stumbling block before the expansion plans go to a public inquiry in January.
Mr Savage said he and his team were confident the inquiry would rule in the airport's favour now. He said he looked forward to expanding the facility, more than doubling its passenger numbers over the next 3 years. This would create between 1000 and 1500 new jobs over that period, he said.
If the plans are given the go-ahead, Mr Savage is looking to increase the number of destinations and bring in more no-frills airlines to Coventry airport. Although there are no concrete plans in place he included among his most popular destination choices Tenerife, Geneva, Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Munich and Frankfurt.
'We are looking to provide a major increase in the number of destinations people can fly to from Coventry. This includes destinations at major cities throughout the UK, including Belfast and Dublin, and as well as more European leisure destinations, there will be more business flights. It will be predominantly low-cost carriers operating from the airport.'
'By the end of this calendar year we will have done about 800,000 passengers per year through the interim passenger facilities. What we have been looking to do for the last 10 years, and especially in the last 18 months since TUI took over, is to get approval for a new terminal and 6000 airport parking spaces at Coventry Airport, which will cater for up to 2 million passengers a year,' he said.
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