The Swedish-Irish community on the west coast is calling for the restoration of direct flights to the Emerald Isle, citing the difficulties that have arisen since the previous direct connections were discontinued.
Speaking to the Irish In Sweden podcast about the inaugural St. Patrick’s Day parade that is due to take place in Gothenburg on March 15, Ian Moloney said that the time was ripe both for the celebrations and a restoration of the direct flights to Ireland.
“We have to do (a parade in) the second biggest city in Sweden – bring a bit of perspective back, bring a bit of attention and light on to Ireland again, and hopefully try to promote a little bit of tourism,” Ian said. “Ryanair haven’t been exactly favourable when it comes to that – I mean, it’s like the extortion of fees now to go with any airline because there’s no direct flight from the west coast here and Gothenburg to Ireland, which is which is bad for both sides of the community.”
Long-time Gothenburg resident Ian, who recently became part-owner of the Flying Barrel pub in the city, travelled back to his native Wexford with his wife Madeleine and daughter Evie over Christmas – despite not being direct, the flights cost an eye-watering €2100.
The matter was raised at a recent meeting with Irish diplomat Ciarán Devlin in the city, which was also attended remotely by Irish ambassador to Sweden, Barbara Jones, and the local community is campaigning on social media to see if they can have the service restored.
“There was rumours of a German company coming up to do it. It would be beneficial to any airline to have this, even if it’s once, twice a week, which Ryanair were doing – you had a Tuesday and a Saturday flight, you could go over for four days, your family could come here for four days or you could just go for a week, two weeks, get back and touch base with everybody,” Ian explained.
“And the amount of tourism, from golfers to hikers to Guinness tasters and whiskey tasters? I just think that people that were all-in for the Irish culture and vice versa, where people in Dublin or from Wexford or from Galway wanted to come to see what Sweden was really like – just fly into Gothenburg, have a look around. Gothenburg is very beautiful,” he added.
Airlines regularly change their routes and the Irish community on Sweden’s west coast will be hoping to make them aware of their plight over the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the city, but Ian says there’s one main reason the connection should be restored.
“When you think about it, I’ve never seen an empty flight going from Gothenburg to Dublin – it was never empty,” he says.