Harbour Flights Ireland Seaplane Trials In Cobh – Friday 27th Aug

Just been confirmed to Cobh Edition by Harbour Flights Ireland that the seaplane trials will begin at approximately 12.30pm tomorrow, Friday 27th, at the Quays Bar. These are test flights ONLY and passengers will not be taken onboard any of the test flights but definately get down there to witness this historic event taking place in Cobh.

About Harbour Flights

Harbour Flights is an innovative company that will be the first company to introduce sea plane operations into Ireland. Emelyn Heaps, the CEO of this company has been involved at the coal face of tourism in Ireland for the past nine years and has, with the assistance of the all the management and staff of Clare Resorts Management, created a vibrant tourism product in East Clare which brings in over 10,000 visitors a year to this region.

Harbour Flights fundamental concept is to open up all of the lakes, waterways and estuary’s around the 32 counties and develop a new and vibrant tourism market.

In December 2009 the Bacon report was issued stating that 25% of the hotels should close in Ireland as this sector was over subscribed. This statement was endorsed by the Irish Hotel Federation.

Harbour Flights are appalled at this logic and we are spending our own money, time and efforts in creating new markets which will assist the hotel sector. Perhaps consultants would be better occupied if they also looked at creating new and vibrant tourist programs instead of stating closure!

Harbour Flights plans are ambitious and like all creative and new concepts, to succeed, it requires the support of all of the Government personnel who wish to assist in promoting tourism in this country, especially in a climate where there is a serious decline in tourist numbers.

Since 2008, the directors have met with Planners, Harbour Masters, Government officials, tourism bodies and like minded individuals who have all embraced this concept. We wish to acknowledge their continued support, especially to all of the Harbour Masters and planning authorities that we have met to-date.

Originally, Harbour Flights began as Aer Taxi Ltd which was formed in 2008. Its directors and share holder are Irish and the company is completely owned by these people. Harbour Flights is not in any form connected, affiliated, aligned or associated with any other sea plane operation anywhere else in the world.

In April 2008 a joint venture agreement was entered into with Harbour Air Malta Ltd. It was on their suggestion that the company name was changed from Aer Taxi to Harbour Air Ireland Ltd.

Owing to various difficulties that we encountered with Harbour Air Malta, in August of 2009 we released ourselves from our agreement and consequently, we amended the companies name to Harbour Flights Ireland Ltd.

However in our dealings with the Maltese operation we learned valuable lessons from them and guidelines that we were able to include in our operation setup and approach. We remain grateful for their input and assistance during our conceptual stages.

Since 2008 we have spent all of our time and resources in applying for all of the statutory approvals that we require to set up our route structures.