Reduced Ryanair summer schedule begins

RYANAIR’S spring/summer schedule commenced at Shannon this week, with the axing of most of the carriers flights.
There are now only 10 Ryanair flights from Shannon with links remaining to Edinburgh, Liverpool, London Gatwick, London Stansted, Malaga, Nantes, Palma Mallorca, Paris Beauvais, Tenerife and Wroclaw.
Stephen McNamara of Ryanair said that the cost of continuing to operate at Shannon was too high.
“The fares that we would have offered wouldn’t have been viable with the €10 tax and the increased charges. We gave the airport two scenarios, one with the tax in place and one without, but they didn’t go for either of them, and they’re entitled to do that. The reduced flight schedules are in place now.”
Mr McNamara said that Ryanair was likely to carry around 300,000 passengers in the next year, compared to 1.9 million previously.
Mayor of Shannon Sean McLoughlin said that the airport is very quiet and there is a need for intervention.
“It’s obvious that there are a lot less flights on the board. The amount of passengers is gone way down and it looks deserted most of the time. We need connectivity to Europe and to the US. At the moment there is hardly anything going east, other than to London.”
He said that Shannon was hugely important to the Mid West and that removing the €10 tax may undo some of the damage being done.
Michael Vaughan, chairman of the Irish Hotels Federation Shannon Branch said that while the loss of services was regrettable, Ryanair hadn’t ever taken a long-term approach to Shannon.
“Predominantly the flights were bringing Irish people abroad, but there was a tourist element as well and to lose that is regrettable. But taking a broader view I’d rather see an airline operating in Shannon that had a longer term interest in the region. Ryanair were always changing routes and they never left them long enough to develop from a tourism point of view.”