SHANNON Airport retains more transatlantic traffic than a number of European capital cities, despite the withdrawal of four weekly Continental flights to Newark this summer, according to airport management.
And despite a projected positive outlook from the airport authority, the Booz report deemed that Shannon’s viability would improve if separated from the DAA and placed in a new entity.
The report shows that traffic at the airport fell by 50% in the five years to 2010.
US airline, Continental, will not operate the extra four flights per week, which serviced Liberty International Airport at Newark in previous years.
Instead it will have one flight per day on the route, rather than two.
A spokesperson for airport management said the withdrawal was “unavoidable” due to the airline’s maintenance schedule.
Charles de Gaulle in Paris will also see their additional service suspended.
Aer Lingus is to reduce its Shannon to New York from four flights to three flights a week.
This loss is countered with an additional service to Boston each week of the summer.
“In addition to the daily Continental service, which will make over 36,000 seats from Shannon available to its Newark hub for the summer months (April through to end October), Aer Lingus will operate services to New York JFK and Boston from the end of March, with the Delta service beginning in May”.
Shannon has 4,300 outbound seats to the US for the summer, representing the second largest number of transatlantic services weekly in all of Ireland, behind Dublin Airport and five times more than Belfast.
“Shannon is also the second airport on the island with direct services to more than one US destination during the summer”.
The spokesperson also echoed the sentiments of Declan Power, business development manager at Shannon Airport, who said at a conference in December that the negative attention surrounding the airport was unwarranted and doing harm to its reputation.
