Ryanair is studying Porto as a place to set up a pilot and crew training center. The low-cost company wants to set up a new center on the Iberian Peninsula and its base in Porto is one of the options on the table.
Ryanair’s chief executive also assured, in a conversation with journalists at the Dublin headquarters, that the fact that the airline lost TAP slots at Lisbon airport to its competitor Easyjet will not have an impact on the decision that will be taken soon. about the location. of the new training center. The two are not linked, Michael O’Leary said, adding that the decision will depend on which location has the best land and facility options. “It does not depend on any government decision.”
Ryanair has been opening recruitment and training centers in the main markets where it operates with the aim of attracting more people from these countries who prefer to train close to home without having to travel to Ireland for this purpose. The company is growing and in pilots alone it hopes to hire more than a thousand in the coming years.
In Lisbon, it is unlikely that the operation of the Irish low-cost airline will grow next year, admitted the president of Ryanair due to the loss of the tender for the 18 slots (schedules) of TAP at the Humberto Delgado airport. Michael O’Leary admitted that he was not surprised by the result of the tender, noting that preference was given to a company that has more expensive rates and that TAP does not mind competing with.
Commenting on the political developments in the dossier of the new airport, the president of Ryanair expressed that he did not understand the delays in the implementation of Montijo’s solution, which is faster and cheaper, nor the environmental problems raised, noting that there is already a track there. He also described as “nonsense” the thesis that the Portela airport is saturated because it has only one runway.
On the possibility of moving forward with a new airport in Campor de Tiro de Alcochete, which had been planned for a few hours in an order from the Ministry of Infrastructure supervised by Pedro Nuno Santos (until it was revoked by order of António de Costa), Michael O ‘Leary said such a hypothesis only shows “how stupid it is” because it involves spending a lot of money in a place that is too far away. “It’s too far away even for Ryanair”, whose business model is to use secondary airports, further away from the destination and cheaper. “But there is always a politician who argues that a desert airport is a good idea.”
The journalist traveled invited by Ryanair.
Source: Observadora
