Shannon ‘a place of gloom and broken morale’

FORMER Director of Shannon Liam Skelly has added his voice to calls for the airport to be given a fair share of Aer Rianta International following a decision on the future of the State airports, something that’s expected inside three weeks.
Aer Rianta International originated in Shannon and Mr Skelly was involved in establishing it in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Speaking to The Clare Champion this week, he said local control of the operation has been lost following the State Airports Act, which has resulted in Shannon being under the control of the Dublin Airport Authority for several years.
He also said Shannon didn’t get its share of the hundreds of millions of euros raised by the disposal of ARI assets, such as its share of Birmingham Airport and ownership of the Great Southern Hotel Group.
The Booz Report acknowledges there is an issue around the future of ARI but doesn’t make a very definitive recommendation.
“ARI is viewed by many stakeholders as a legacy asset of the old Shannon Airport. As such, to these stakeholders, it represents an important negotiation point in any debt settlement between the airport and the DAA, should separation take place.”
Mr Skelly said the State Airports Act had the effect of taking Shannon’s assets away from it and giving them to the financially stronger Dublin.
“On a financial basis, the Dublin job was much easier than running Shannon. Shannon always had to be inventive to survive. Up until the State Airports Act was enacted, you had three airports – all of equal status – operating to the best of their ability and Shannon started to lose money. When the act came into force, it had the effect of upgrading the powers and authority of Dublin Airport, who in effect controlled the other two airports.
“It gave the assets of the company to the Dublin Airport Authority. These assets included the title deeds to the Great Southern Hotel Group and investments made by Aer Rianta into Birmingham, Hamburg and Dusseldorf. It also gave them the cash cow, born and reared in Shannon, of ownership of Aer Rianta International and all the joint ventures created by the Shannon Executive. They got them all. Did anybody ask before putting through this act what was the value of these assets?”
He said the structures that were put in place following the act were disastrous for Shannon, while Dublin feasted on the profits of ARI, which was developed entirely by Shannon executives.
“A new board and a new chief executive was appointed to take over the new company and they didn’t take too long to do a bit of asset stripping. They sold the Great Southern Hotel Group for €265 million. They sold the Shannon-based ARI interest in Birmingham for €320 million and Hamburg for €30 million. In all, they disposed of €615 million of assets that the DAA acquired from the labours of others and decided this money would be used to build T2 in Dublin.
“While Cork and Shannon have to bear the cost of any investments or losses and have it constantly raised as a major problem, Dublin is allowed to get off scot-free. Tell me how fair is that situation? The effect on Shannon has been catastrophic. The highly-paid CEO and his executives have done nothing positive for Shannon. It’s a place of gloom and broken morale.”
The negative effects of the State Airports Act are quite wide-ranging, he said. “They disbanded the board of Shannon College without even sending a thank you note to some of the long serving members, such as Jim Lyons and Rory Murphy. As far as marketing techniques, God deliver us. Brendan O’Regan founded the first Duty Free shop in the world, it has been copied by operators everywhere and the title used all over the world. You’d expect to see a notice to that effect and maybe a plaque to the founder at Shannon but there’s no mention at all of Brendan O’Regan or Duty Free. The DAA has come up with the brilliant idea to camouflage anything about Duty Free by calling the Duty Free shop the Loop. One final thing, they appointed a new chief executive of ARI but he doesn’t think it worthwhile coming down from Dublin. He’s running it at a distance.”
He claimed Dublin-based executives may even have been paid bonuses because ARI was making the DAA balance sheet look so good.
Mr Skelly believes Shannon’s role in creating ARI should be acknowledged and that a lot of negatives would have been avoided had it been left with Shannon.
“It’s my firm belief that the State Airports Act should have aligned overseas activities with Shannon and it was a grave injustice not to do so. It would have allowed Shannon to clear its large debt and it would have provided a solid financial basis going forward to actively promote traffic through Shannon. It would have prevented the recent crisis and ensure Dublin had to raise its own funds to build T2,” he conclued.