Shannon Airport’s Santa Flights, run in conjunction with Ryanair, were at the top of the wish list of parents and children today as 1,900 seats were booked out in the space of just 12 minutes after booking opened at midday.
This year’s flights will operate on December 13 and 14 when ten flights in all, carrying almost 1,900 passengers, will take to the skies over the two days, with Santa transferring from his sleigh to board the aircraft some 15,000ft above sea-level during the 40 minute journeys.
A nominal €10 charge for each booking of up to a maximum of six seats was applied, with all the proceeds going to two local charities – the Clare Crusaders and St. Gabriels School in Limerick.
Mirmear Autism Unit Class, Puckane, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary got an extra special surprise when Shannon Airport announced the class as the winner of a special online Santa Flights competition, run on its Facebook page. The competition asked for people to nominate deserving community groups, school classes and clubs to be in with a chance of winning 40 Santa Flight seats. Members of Mirmear Autism Unit Class will take to the sky to meet Santa on Saturday, December 13.
Confirming that all the seats had been snapped up, Neil Pakey, CEO, Shannon Group said the demand was phenomenal. “We had 1,900 seats available today for the public and the fact that they were gone within 12 minutes shows just how big the demand was.
“If we had 100 times the number of seats available today, it probably wouldn’t have been enough. The demand was that huge and obviously grew from last year when we operated our Santa Flights for the first time.
“This is the airport’s way of saying thank you to the public for its support in a year that has seen our passenger numbers grow significantly”, he said
