Airport flying high

FOR the first time in five years, Shannon recorded year-on-year growth in June and figures released this week showed July was an even better month.

 

While there was an 8% hike in June, this July was up by 9.4% on July 2012. Passenger numbers for the month were 177,558, up from 158,603.

Like June, the growth was strongest in the transatlantic market, numbers up from 38,781 in July 2012 to 54,014, an increase of 39%. This is particularly positive for Clare tourism as US visitors are likely to spend some of their holiday in the county and are far better spenders than European visitors.

The increase in US tourists is largely because of new services to Chicago and Philadelphia.

While Shannon’s decline continued unabated up until June, it is very encouraging that the improvement seen then was consolidated in July.

Shannon has a target of 2.5 million passengers per annum to be reached in the coming years and Transport Minister Leo Varadkar has said he doesn’t believe there is any future if that cannot be reached.

With just 1.4 million passengers last year, a far cry from the 3.6 million of a few years ago, Shannon has a long way to go but at least things are moving in the right direction after years of decline.

Welcoming the figures for July, Shannon Airport CEO Neil Pakey said, “We are delighted to have achieved a second successive month of growth at Shannon. The figures very much reflect the enhanced level of services delivered at Shannon this year, not least on US destinations thanks to new routes to Philadelphia and Chicago on top of already having Newark, JFK and Boston services.

“This has been very positive for the tourism market here, from Cork right up to the North-West, as Shannon is the only airport on the entire western seaboard with transatlantic services.”

Interestingly, Mr Pakey said the warm weather in July would have worked against Shannon, with fewer Irish people making plans to travel. “The increase is all the more encouraging given the anecdotal reports from travel agents here that the good weather caused a lot of people to holiday at home rather than book last minute trips to the sun, which would have pushed our figures up even higher.”

He said Shannon is receiving positive feedback from hoteliers in the region. “They have done better than they expected from the domestic market because of the good weather but, on top of that, have benefited from the big increase in US visitors coming through Shannon.

“This has really driven growth as US visitors spend a lot more than tourists from any other country, so we are delighted to have made this contribution and are focussed on keeping up the momentum.”