Ryanair sweetheart deal not a good idea
SHANNON airport needs dynamic management, leadership and support from central government funds if it is to win back former status, warns leading travel agent Tony Brazil, reacting to last week’s Limerick Post story on the fallout from Ryanair’s axing of 16 routes.
The Limerick Travel founder claimed that the Shannon success story was engineered by the late Brendan O’Regan and continued by Liam Skelly – “but now, there isn’t any voice to champion its cause, and here, I am not talking about politicians.
“Look at the figures-Shannon has lost 900,000 passengers over three seasons”.
It did not help, he continued, that marketing personnel had been reduced from six staff to two, and in his opinion, the strategy of offering a sweetheart deal to Ryanair had now come back to haunt the Shannon Airport Authority.
“The end result was that other low-budget airlines were frightened off by Ryanair’s dominance, and now that they have substantially reduced their destinations from Shannon, it is going to be extremely difficult to fill the vacant slots.
“When Aer Lingus ended their Heathrow route from Shannon, City Jet came to the rescue with flights to Paris, and from there offering worldwide connectivity. A Heathrow connection, it had been argued at the time of the Aer Lingus pullout, was essential to Shannon, to allow passengers get connecting flights. Aer Lingus later decided to return and City Jet opted out.
“From that experience, what other low-budget airline would want to use Shannon now with the threat of a possible Ryanair comeback hanging over them?”
Brazil is not altogether convinced that the Ryanair decision to cut its flights from Shannon was because of any refusal by the Airport Authority to reduce costs. “Their excuse that charges were too high might hold up in a small way, but may not have been the full reason. Ryanair probably looked at the bigger picture, ie. high unemployment in the region and, together with the downturn in the economy, came to the conclusion there was likely to be less demand for their services.
“In the boom period, people made upwards of five flight abroad per year, whether it be for holidays, weekend breaks or sports fixtures, but all that has changed”.
He claimed that the airport was now vulnerable because of the short-sighted policy adopted by Shannon Airport Authority
