Tag Archives: Airport

SHANNON Group got a share of stick at Monday’s meeting with the County Council, but at least one element of it was undue. In his speech to the meeting, Mayor of Clare Cathal Crowe criticised various decisions made, and also claimed that Clare’s local representatives had been ignored at a recent celebration. “It was disappointing that the airport held a significant event just last week to mark the 80th anniversary of its operations and didn’t invite the Chief Executive Pat Dowling, Councillor Gerry Flynn (Chairman of the Shannon District) or myself, as Mayor of Clare, to attend. “Shannon Group must do better to improve its working relationship with this County Council.” However some time later when Acting Shannon Group CEO Mary Considine responded to questions raised by members, she said that there actually had not been a celebratory event to mark the 80th anniversary, although Shannon had used the date to help with its own promotion.   Owen Ryan

MORE than one-third of Shannon’s passengers last year were people going to or coming from London. New figures from the CSO show that Heathrow was Shannon’s busiest route in 2018, with 276,236 travelling to and from what is one of the world’s greatest hub airports. Another 203,000 travelled to and from Stansted and another 117,326 to and from Gatwick. That adds up to 596,562 travelling between Shannon and London. Overall, Shannon had 1,677,661 passengers over the course of 2018, meaning 35.5% of the passengers were going to and from London. With another 85,000 travelling to and from Manchester, it is very clear that a relatively good outcome for Brexit is very important for Shannon. While the CSO figures for Shannon are somewhat different from others released earlier this year, this is because these statistics do not include passengers on transit flights. The busiest transatlantic route was New York, with more than 118,000 travelling to and from JFK. January and February …

LESS than three years after he arrived, Matthew Thomas is leaving his role as CEO of Shannon Group. He is set to take up a new position as CEO of the Ports of Jersey. Shannon Group Deputy CEO Mary Considine will take on the role of Acting CEO of Shannon Group after his departure in June. Since his arrival in mid 2016 Shannon Airport’s passenger numbers have increased, but the level of growth has been very moderate, reaching just 1.86 million last year. While this was an increase of 6.5% on 2017, it is not much more than half the numbers which used Shannon during the Celtic Tiger years, and the Clare airport’s growth was eclipsed by the increasing dominance of Dublin. Shannon is now way off the targets that were set for it as it separated from the Dublin Airport Authority at the start of 2013. On the industrial side, during Mr Thomas’ tenure there was significant investment in …

THE latest news and views from Clare Champion journalists Carol Byrne and Owen Ryan. This week they discuss the inquest into last May’s double drowning in Ennis, the plight of Shannon Airport, the Kilkee murder trial, LIT opening a Clare campus and the impact of smartphone use on young minds. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/575356677″ params=”color=#ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”300″ iframe=”true” /]

MANY tears of happiness have been shed in the terminal of Shannon Airport over the last week, as loved ones are welcomed home for Christmas. People whose journeys began in Australia, America, the UK and many other countries are all being welcomed back into their families, with almost 73,000 expected to come through the airport over the festive period. George Egan from Inagh was waiting expectantly outside arrivals on Wednesday morning for his London-based son, also called George. Making his way to Shannon to pick up his son had been no chore. “I’m delighted, it’ll be great to see him. The rest of the family are coming tomorrow too.” Young George works in finance in the UK and was glad to be home. “I’m back for a couple of weeks, so I’m delighted with that. It’s good to see him [his father], it’s been a few months since I’ve been back. I didn’t think he’d set this up!” he joked, …

THE Rome-Chicago flight which diverted to Shannon yesterday is set to continue onwards at 3pm this afternoon, after no explosive device was found. Emergency services spent hours searching luggage on the runway at Shannon yesterday afternoon, while passengers were also forced to spend long spells outside, having disembarked from the aircraft. It is understood that messages were written on a mirror and a door in the toilets of the plane, warning of a bomb. Once the passengers were taken off, sniffer dogs searched the luggage while a subsequent visual search was carried out. Samples of handwriting were also taken from those on board. Passengers spent the night in local hotels and it is understood many of them missed onward connections as a result of the delay. Owen Ryan

Members of the Emergency Response Unit, Regional Armed Support Unit and Garda Air Support Unit as well as the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Unit were involved in a simulated anti-terrorism training exercise at Shannon Airport this Tuesday morning. The staged event saw the airport being stormed by an armed group, calling themselves the Doomsday Cult. During the simulated attack, the terrorist group fired blank rounds of ammunition at trainee gardaí who were acting as passengers in the departures lounge of Shannon Airport. As the exercise progressed it triggered a coordinated armed response from members of the Garda Air Support Unit, the Defence Forces, the naval service, the air corps, the EOD, and Shannon Airport personnel . The situation then moved to a hostage negotiation scenario where a tactical team was deployed to reason with the terrorist group and recover the hostages. The exercise was staged at Shannon Airport between 2.30pm and 4pm on Tuesday and involved upwards of 130 individuals. The …

SHANNON Airport Authority is looking for a retail operator to take on two units. One of the units is landside and 187.3 m2 in size. It is situated in a pivotal location in the main terminal building, between the check-in area and the arrivals area. According to the tender documents, the unit “is visible and accessible to all arriving and departing passengers, ‘meeters and greeters’, airport staff and the general public”. The other unit is 136 m2 in size and is in the departure lounge, adjacent to the main duty free shop. According to the documentation, the items to be sold would include books, magazines and similar publications, as well as convenience items (soft drinks, pre-packed sandwiches, mobile phone top ups etc). It also states, “SAA is currently working on a ‘Sense of Place’ masterplan, which is focusing on the essential touch points in the passenger journey from the approach road to the boarding gate and all key areas in …