Tag Archives: aviation

TDs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly addressed Ennis District Court at some length today, claiming that official failures had left them with no option but to enter restricted areas of Shannon airport without permission. [doptg id=”49″] They said they had done so as the powers that be refused to address their complaints about the US military aircraft use of Shannon and put the onus on those seeking checks on military aircraft to provide evidence. Today was the second day of the hearing and the matter has now been adjourned until April 15. The first witness today was John Lannon of peace group Shannonwatch. Mr Lannon is a lecturer in UL, and holds expertise in human rights. He said that while he didn’t know precisely how many times specific concerns about the US use of Shannon have been expressed to gardaí, it is “well over 100”. Mr Lannon added that the Garda response had been “to essentially do nothing”. It was …

SHANNON and Cork can have guarantees of Heathrow connectivity for five years if IAG buys the State’s share in Aer Lingus, its CEO Willie Walsh pledged at today’s meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications. Clare political figures have expressed concern about the possibility of Shannon losing its vital connectivity to Heathrow in the event of a takeover, but Mr Walsh insisted that the guarantee he is offering is far better than what the airport actually has already. He also claimed that while the concern is at one level understandable, it is actually misplaced, given that the route is profitable. Indeed, he went so far as to say that the current Aer Lingus management could not match the IAG guarantee without drawing the ire of some of the shareholders. While he said IAG is happy to give the guarantees and that there is no reason to pull away from what is a profitable route, he stressed that he will not give …

MICHAEL O’Leary was once known for his scathing attacks on government, but he was singing a different song at Shannon on Monday, at one point saying he’d be worried about a change of administration. Michael Noonan sat beside him at the airport on Monday, and his sense of self worth must have been soaring as O’Leary doled out the love for the Finance Minister. “As someone who is frequently critical of politicians and often quoted as being critical of politicians when they don’t do something intelligent, today is one of those opportunities, rare enough in Ireland where you get the chance to credit politicians when they do something sensible. One of the worst decisions undertaken by the previous Government of this country was at a time of financial crisis to impose a tax on visitors to a peripheral island. The travel tax had a devastating impact on air traffic and tourism in this country. We have lobbied long and hard …

AERCAP, a Dutch company which employs 50 people in Shannon, is about to complete the acquisition of International Lease Finance Corporation and plans to re-domicile billions of euro worth of assets to Ireland. The company, when contacted on Wednesday, wasn’t in a position to say how the move would impact on its Shannon operations. When the separation of Shannon from the Dublin Airport Authority was announced last December, it was predicted that 3,000 to 5,000 jobs would be created within five years in aviation related industries. On Tuesday, Patrick Edmond, director of Group Strategy for Shannon and managing director of the Shannon International Aviation Services Centre, tweeted a link to a news story on the plans to re-domicile the ILFC fleet to Ireland, which is understood to include 1,000 planes. He also tweeted a correction regarding another news story, which stated that Aercap is Dublin-based rather than Shannon-based. Ratings agency, Fitch released a statement about the takeover on Monday, which …