Looking Back: In 2025 it was 40 Years of Ryanair and Waterford Airport

On July 8, 1985, a small cohort of suited, mostly balding, middle-aged men representing the business interests of Waterford bundled onto a 15-seater Embraer Bandeirante aircraft. Destination: London Gatwick.

Those men were flying on the maiden voyage of what was a newly founded, then-anonymous budget airline named Ryanair.

The flight was pitched at businessmen, with the £198 return ticket designed to undercut more expensive routes from Dublin. Bank of England’s inflation calculator estimates that same flight today would be £604, or €691.

Forty years on, and that small budget airline has become a global juggernaut, now valued at roughly €30 billion. The airport, on the other hand, has stumbled – Ryanair stopped flying from Waterford in 1992, with commercial flights ceasing in 2016.

The relationship between the two has been turbulent. Amid efforts to get government funding for the extension of Waterford Airport’s runway, Michael O’Leary branded activists “local lunatics” and asserted that the airport had “no commercial or economic future”.

Sean Power of Harvey Travel Ltd on Gladstone Street can still recall the rosier times when Ryanair first began flying from Waterford.

“It was all new and exciting. And the fact that there was access in Waterford to get to the UK. That was a big issue,” Power said.

Now the skies look to be clearing. At the time of writing, Waterford City & County Council have advanced negotiations to sell the airport to an anonymous investor promising to pump €30 million into the airport with aims of attracting commercial airlines.

Even O’Leary has tempered his tone. Speaking to RTÉ, he opened the possibility of a London flight “two or three times a week”.

While Power is keen to avoid prophesying, given the numerous false dawns Waterford Airport has witnessed over the years, he says an upgraded airport could majorly benefit the Déise.

“Inbound travel, there’s a big market out there, and that will be very important to Waterford and the South East. So any help to bring that to fruition would be great for any of us in the industry and the travelling public of Waterford,” he says.

“This is where Ryanair cut their teeth, in Waterford. I hope that they will see Waterford in a good light when the time comes, when this runaway is completed, when all the various aspects of what’s needed are put in place.

“It would be great to see Ryanair coming back in here again, as it was where they were really born.”