Shannon numbers back to 1988 levels

A SPOKESMAN for Shannon Airport last week indicated that 2012 is likely to see the lowest passenger numbers there since 1988, almost a quarter of a century ago.

 

The final figure for 2012 isn’t yet available, but the figure in 1988 was 1.394 million, while it was 1.469 million in 1989, indicating that the 2012 figure is likely to be somewhere between the two.

This would represent a significant decrease on 2011, when over 1.6 million people used Shannon. The figures illustrate the calamitous decline seen at the airport, which saw a record 3.6 million passengers in 2007, before beginning a steep decline.

In 2008 the figure was down to 3.169 million, it was 2.794 million in 2009 and 1.755 million in 2010.
Despite the poor passenger numbers, there have been some positive announcements over the last few months, with new routes being announced to Chicago and Philadelphia next summer.

It is also expected that a significant new deal between Ryanair and Shannon will be announced in the New Year, following Shannon’s separation from the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA).

Rose Hynes, who has been appointed chairperson of the new Shannon Authority and who chaired the Government-appointed aviation business development task force on the airport, has said that airlines will be interested in coming to Shannon, after its separation from the DAA.

“The airlines would be interested in doing business but their concern was that there was uncertainty hanging over the airport and that the uncertainty had been there for quite a long time.

“While they could see the opportunities, they were just too concerned about the uncertainty so therefore the single biggest enabler for Shannon is actually separation and clarity in relation to its future. But there are airlines, a number of them, willing to do business. They’ll come up to the line but they won’t cross it until post separation and that’s why I say it’s [separation] the biggest enabler,” she told The Clare Champion in an interview earlier this month.

The business development plan for the post-separation Shannon envisages achieving passenger numbers of 2.5 million by 2021.

In the final report of the taskforce chaired by Ms Hynes, it stated that Shannon will have new opportunities to increase its business following the separation from the DAA, which will happen in a few days time as the year ends.

“Shannon has considerable potential to develop its air traffic, in terms of both short-haul scheduled services and also long-haul and transit operations.

“The airport has historically been constrained in terms of the incentive deals it can offer by the fact that the DAA adopts a uniform structure across all three State airports in the DAA group. As an autonomous entity, Shannon Airport will have the ability to structure incentive deals for new services, which correspond better to the airport’s particular characteristics and market.”

The report also said that Shannon must consciously look at doing things differently from the other State airports after separation, rather than slavishly continuing with structures that are designed to suit Dublin.

“A newly autonomous Shannon Airport should seek to differentiate itself from the DAA, rather than following DAA processes and business practices by default.

“In order to maximise passenger numbers, Shannon needs not only to develop its route network but also to ensure that it offers an attractive customer experience to its passengers in comparison with its competing airports, which are principally the DAA airports at Dublin and Cork.

“Similarly, Shannon Airport should evaluate the business processes that it inherits from the DAA to establish whether they are all appropriate and optimised for an autonomous airport entity,” it said.