21% drop in flights at airport

THERE has been some good news for Shannon in the last few weeks, with new routes announced from the Clare airport but new figures from the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) show just how difficult a year 2010 was.

There were 27,359 flights at Shannon last year compared to 34,936 in 2009. This amounted to an overall reduction of 21.7%. The amount of commercial flights declined from 27,691 in 2009 to 18,762 last year, a drop of 32.2%.
The statistics show that the number of flights at Shannon were down for each month in 2010, compared with the same one in 2009. May saw the biggest year-on-year drop, falling by 40.6%. December was the smallest, down from 1,651 to 1,462, or 11.4%.
Cork and Dublin airports also saw reductions in 2010 but these were far smaller than at Shannon.
In a statement, a Shannon Airport representative said there have been serious difficulties but there is some cause for optimism. “The Irish Aviation Authority end-of-year report on traffic numbers has merely confirmed the extremely difficult year that 2010 was for Shannon Airport, not least the first six months. Aviation internationally suffered badly in 2010 but we had the added complication of the ending of the unsustainable Ryanair five-year agreement in March and thereafter have been moving towards a more sustainable network of services. This will ultimately leave the airport in a more secure position but not yield the same level of passengers.”
With regard to the future, the spokesperson said, “We are already showing real signs of turning the corner with announcements over the second half of 2010 and into the New Year of a range of new services into Europe and the UK.”
The coming year should be better than the one gone by, the statement concluded. “We expect that the market for 2011 will continue to be challenging but we are confident that, after the difficulties of 2010, we are now going in the right direction.”
Fine Gael TD Joe Carey laid the blame at the feet of the Government.
“I believe that the ambivalence of Fianna Fáil in Government has sucked the economic lifeblood out of Shannon Airport. We have no long-term economic plan for the airport. We have a travel tax that places a direct charge on tourists using our airports. This policy should have been abolished in full in the last budget, as it continues to add unnecessary travel taxes to every fare.”