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Northern Ireland's biggest airshow may return in 2022 bigger and better than ever before!

Airwaves Portrush the biggest and most popular airshow on the island of Ireland was called off in February 2020 due to having its funding withdrawn and many believed this was the end of the free seaside airshow but finally, we have some good news for the airshow fans on the island of Ireland as the Causeway Coast and Glens council will vote next year on the new idea to develop a new International Causeway Airshow for 2022 to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and explore holding the event every two years from then on.

Some context: Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council previously ran the AirWaves Portrush show each September, at a cost of £240,000 and an estimated value of £2.5m to the NI economy. In February of this year it was revealed that the council was on the brink of collapse, having inherited £70m in debt and facing a £7m funding deficit for this year. Various emergency measures were implemented, including a gargantuan 7% rise in council tax, scrapping tourism initiatives such as the airshow and doubling parking charges. This was expected to stave off financial ruin in the short term, but it was a drop in the ocean in comparison to the bigger picture. Fast forward a few months, and many of the same councillors who pressed for the cancellation of this year's show are supporting a motion to create a new one!

The vote is on Jan 5th, so we'll probably find out more in a week's time. The motion already has cross-party support from four parties and an independent. There's no detail yet on the proposed budget or potential funding sources, event format, performers, or even how many days it'll run for - so it's rather early for European Airshows to be saying it'll be bigger and better than before! They seem to have pinched that sentence from a local newspaper headline, but removed the rather crucial question mark, as it was never supposed to be a statement!

FYI, the 2022 event would be the International Causeway Airshow, not AirWaves Portrush.

This plan has been approved 24-15 by the council, with objections primarily coming from Sinn Fein. The local press is reporting that the event may take place during the Thursday 2nd June-Sunday 5th June Jubilee public holiday, but this hasn't been confirmed. That's likely to be a period of very high demand on assets like the Red Arrows, so there are pros and cons of selecting those dates.

Edit - I also wonder how plans could be affected if we have a new Monarch by June 2022 - especially if the airshow is scheduled for Thursday/Friday. There's no recent precedent to go off, but I wonder if those two days would lose their Bank Holiday status.

And so the saga rumbles on... Sinn Fein are challenging the legality of the decision to revive the airshow, given it was cancelled on grounds of cost, and the council's financial situation hasn't been resolved since then. They haven't actually presented a legal argument as to why the motion was unlawful, however.

Naturally there have also been protests from a local environmental group, and various nationalists who oppose the event being linked to the Queen's jubilee. An interesting side-note, but every Unionist councillor voted to revive the airshow last week, and every Nationalist councillor voted against the plan.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news ... 63953.html

Airshow has now been renamed Northern Ireland International Airshow and has announced its RAF displays

Red Arrows (SATURDAY ONLY)
Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4
Battle of Britain Memorial Flight

https://www.air-shows.org.uk/2022/04/ai ... t-airshow/

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