SHANNON Airport has rebounded exceptionally well from the pandemic, and there was more good news on Thursday as Ryanair announced it will base three aircraft there for its summer 2023 season, while it is adding two new destinations, Béziers in France and Newcastle.
Projections are that the airline will bring 1.3 million passengers to and from Shannon next year, which would be the highest number since the Celtic Tiger years, when Shannon’s traffic hit record heights.
In total Ryanair will have 180 flights per week from Shannon during next year’s summer season, serving 24 destinations, a 60% increase on pre-pandemic numbers.
Shannon Airport Group CEO Mary Considine said that Thursday’s news is significant, particularly the decision to base another aircraft at Shannon.
✈️ ROUTE NEWS ✈️
Fly direct to Newcastle & Beziers with @Ryanair from March 2023!
We're delighted to welcome today's announcement by @Ryanair who have launched a seat sale to celebrate! Fares from €24.99 🎉
Read more: https://t.co/Y6DZ0C61yQ#shannonairport #makingiteasy pic.twitter.com/av4hwaOadW
— Shannon Airport (@ShannonAirport) October 6, 2022
“We’re very pleased Ryanair are expanding here. They’re announcing today that they’ll base a third aircraft in Shannon from next summer, that shows their commitment and obviously the more aircraft that are based here the more opportunity to add frequency on existing routes and add new routes. We’ve seen today the announcement of two new routes, to Newcastle and Bézier and we’d hope to see the addition of further routes in the coming months.”
Shannon has been performing very well in 2022, she said, “The recovery has been very strong at Shannon, this year we will be back up to 80% of pre-pandemic levels, we’d hope to be even higher than that. That’s very good considering what the outlook for the current year was and the fact that we were impacted by the Omicron variant in quarter 1.”
The cost of living crisis could have implications for air travel in the coming months, but she is hopeful that Shannon can maintain its current momentum. “The airlines have seen very strong demand, very strong pent up demand, high load factors on those aircraft coming to and from Shannon, right across the board it is really positive. There is volatility in the marketplace with rising fuel prices and inflation, but we are confident that we are building back up, the services are being very well supported and it’s important that we continue to get that support from the region.”
The summer saw horror stories coming out of Dublin Airport, and Ms Considine said many people have used Shannon for the first time this year. “Something has helped us is the investments we have made. The investment in upgrading our screening equipment has made it easier to go through Shannon, people have realised how convenient Shannon is and I think we have significantly broadened our catchment area this year.
“The fact we were able to ramp up quickly, we were operationally ready, has also been to our advantage and people that had never flown from Shannon have flown from here this year and realised how convenient it is. You can park pretty much outside the door, get through security really quickly and if you’re going to the US get through CBP really quickly.”
Ryanair’s Director of Commercial Jason McGuinness said that the coming years could potentially see even more aircraft based at Shannon. “We have a very good management team here and they realised at the start of Covid what was happening in terms of European aviation, with there being less capacity across Europe. We have a sensible long term deal here and we’re going to continue to grow. There’s no reason the number of aircraft here won’t grow to four or five.”
He said that Ryanair is expanding more quickly at Ireland’s smaller airports, than at Dublin, while he had a dig at Aer Lingus decison to close its Shannon cabin crew base. “We are growing much faster in the regions than we are in Dublin, and part of that is this investment. There is a record number of destinations from regional Ireland this year, we’re operating 68 routes which is nine more than prior to Covid, with a 40% increase in capacity. We’ll continue to serve regional Ireland, particularly Shannon, while some other aircraft have closed their base and moved the aircraft to Manchester.”
Mr McGuinness said that Ryanair’s low cost model will serve it well in the current economic climate. “We’ve had a strong recovery this summer, it was a lot of hard work and it’s a credit to the Ryanair team. We are cautious looking into winter, there’s a cost of living crisis, inflation, the illegal invasion of Ukraine. But I’ve been through recessions in Ryanair and what happens in a recession is people trade down to Ryanair, they’re much more price conscious and we’re seeing that in our load factors, people are moving to Ryanair in their droves for the lower prices and reliability. We are cautious, but Ryanair is very well placed going into next winter.”
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.