00:00So, Irlandia is an aviation investment firm established by Declan Rhine, a member of the Rhine family that established Rhine Airway back in 1985.
00:08And they've gone on to establish airlines in Singapore, in Mexico, in North America and in Colombia over the last 25 years.
00:17And it's investing in a number of different aviation projects.
00:22Yeah, and you have authored or co-authored this report for them?
00:26Yeah, so over the last three months, myself and Eamon Brennan, who was the former Chief Executive of the Irish Aviation Authority and was also Director General of Eurocontrol,
00:37he and I have put together this report after talking in confidence with 33 industry leaders that Declan Rhine had written to and asked would they give us their views in confidence about how to best position the Irish aviation industry for the next 20 years.
00:53There's five policy recommendations in the report and one of those focuses in on the opportunity to explore the complementary skills in aviation between the North and South of Ireland.
01:06So, in Northern Ireland, you have over 80 companies that are heavily focused on manufacturing, engineering, technology around aerospace and commercial aviation.
01:14In the South, you have aircraft leasing companies and airlines that, between them, own over 10,000 commercial aircraft worldwide and over 23,000 commercial engines.
01:25Now, that's about a third of the total global fleet.
01:29And to put that in context, air passengers to and from the island of Ireland account for only 1% of the global market.
01:35So, we massively over-index in the world of aviation.
01:39And in Northern Ireland, you have particular strengths in areas such as producing wings for the Airbus A220 in Belfast.
01:46You're a major supplier of commercial aviation seats for the global fleet.
01:51And you have a whole array of technology companies that are expert in supporting everything from drones to unmanned aerial vehicles and commercial aviation.
01:58So, we're arguing that there could be an all-island approach to developing aviation.
02:02And as part of that, we've recommended three specific ideas.
02:07One, to apply PSOs, Public Service Obligation Grants, to open up routes between Dublin and Derry and Cork and Belfast.
02:15Secondly, to abolish air passenger departure tax in Northern Ireland, to allow the North to share in the benefit of having that tax break, encouraging tourism.
02:24And thirdly, to explore the development of maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities on the island, focusing in particular on Derry and Shannon.
02:35And Derry is one of the two we've identified because it's got the space, it's got the opportunity, it has shown itself recently in the last 10 years that there's an appetite to do this.
02:44And if you think of its proximity to third level institutions in the Northwest, if you think of its proximity to the aircraft manufacturing and aerospace cluster that exists in Northern Ireland, where there's a heavy flow of apprentices produced each year, these are essential to make a maintenance and overhaul facility work really well.
03:02So we're saying if you can bring together the industry with the Strategic Wealth Fund in Ireland, ISAF, with the Aerospace Technology Institute in the UK, with Invest Northern Ireland, and with the engine manufacturers and the airlines and lessors,
03:16you could put together a project that could bring a facility to an airfield like Derry that could employ hundreds of people.
03:24And not so long ago, companies like MPE, up in Maydown, they're actually doing contracts for some of the big Bombardier, unfortunately that's gone now, but there is a kind of legacy there that could be built on, that's not very far from City of the Aeroport.
03:38Yeah, that's one of our key points, that the heritage in Northern Ireland is very much around manufacturing and engineering and technology.
03:45That ideally suits MRO and engine overhaul facilities.
03:49So trying to get the ecosystem in Northern Ireland thinking about that and working on ways to entice and attract private capital to support it could be a very worthwhile enterprise.
04:01There was a scoping exercise, I think about 2017 for one.
04:05It didn't go anywhere, unfortunately, but there's a good opportunity with this report that will reboot that.
04:10Yeah, I think that was really heavily impacted by Brexit and by COVID, which completely capsized the whole aviation industry for a period of time.
04:19But as I understand it, various stakeholders in this area are very keen to get this back up and running.
04:24So I think any support you can get, all the better.
04:27Yeah, and one of the recommendations in the report was the Dublin route.
04:31So Daryl Brayne's actually listening on this.
04:33She's got a one very quick moment.
04:35Yeah, exactly.
04:36Like we said, we've got five policy recommendations and we're tracking them very carefully.
04:40We're having a big conference in Dublin, September 25th, to talk about investing in Irish aviation.
04:44And we're going to have a bit of a scorecard there as to where we're going with these policies.
04:47But that is an early win and it's great to see it.
04:51And I think it's going to be really important in providing connectivity between the North West and Dublin,
04:55especially on the back of the bad news about the A5 road, which came through this week.
04:59Does that worry you?
05:01I can see all sorts of implications because of that legislation.
05:06Does it worry you, particularly coming from an aviation background?
05:09Carbon becomes a talking point sometimes.
05:13Yeah, it's got to be addressed.
05:16But in fairness, aviation accounts for less than 3% of global emissions.
05:19I mean, if you think about the construction industry, it accounts for 20% of global emissions.
05:23But no one ever talks about when you build a house, the environmental impact of that,
05:26even though there is significant environmental impact.
05:28And the house builders, in fairness, are incorporating all new forms of production to address that.
05:33In aviation, Ireland is a leader in addressing the sustainability challenge
05:37because we have the youngest fleet of any airlines across Europe.
05:43We have, Aer Lingus and Reiner have committed to incorporating sustainable aviation fuel
05:47at a much higher rate than Europe is actually mandating.
05:51And thirdly, we're very enthusiastically supporting the introduction of a thing called the Single European Sky,
05:56which is a European Commission initiative designed to take all the kinks out of air travel over Europe,
06:01which are a legacy of the Second World War.
06:03If you did that alone, you could cut emissions by 10% in aviation.
06:06So if people want to put a focus point on the sustainability agenda for aviation,
06:10that's where they should apply their attention rather than talking about restricting aviation.
06:14Because if you don't have highly efficient air services on and off the island of Ireland,
06:19you're not going to be able to enable foreign direct investment, tourism and indigenous Irish industry
06:24to create the hundreds of thousands of jobs needed over the next 20 years
06:29to ensure we don't go back to the specter of structural immigration in this country.
06:32And you mentioned the conference is coming up shortly.
06:36How hopeful are you that this can be progressed, that it becomes,
06:41seeps its way into government policy and then you get towards budgeting towards these things?
06:45Well, I think it'll require a campaign.
06:47I mean, we saw the report as just the start of the process, not the end of the process, publishing it.
06:51It's all about now campaigning around it.
06:53So this meeting tonight in Derry, tomorrow we have a meeting in Belfast with various stakeholders.
06:58We're getting a very positive reaction from key influencers and key decision makers.
07:02So we hope that that will help trigger some activity over the next 12 months.
