Responding to figures for January air-traffic through Irish airspace, a Shannon Airport spokesperson told Clare FM that “Shannon Airport monthly passenger figures will continue to show a decline for the first quarter of 2011, at the end of which they will stabilize and return to growth. The drop is largely attributable to the ending of a five-year agreement with Ryanair, which had four aircraft based at the airport and operated 18 services twelve months ago compared to one aircraft and ten services this January. Shannon Airport was unable to accede to the airline’s demands for a new agreement that would have involved unsustainable passenger charges and significantly reduced traffic volumes. The ending of the agreement accounts for 90% of the decline in passenger numbers at Shannon since.
However the spokeperson added that from May of this year they expect that both passenger and air traffic movement data will show a marked improvement at Shannon, arising from the airport’s strong recovery in the latter half of 2010 and its move towards a more sustainable network of services. They went on to state that "this has already yielded positive results, with the announcement of a range of new services in the latter half of the year, an upswing that has been maintained into 2011.
The new services include the establishment of Aer Lingus Regional services to Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Bristol last summer and the commencement in December of the new Aer Lingus Paris-Charles de Gaulle service and the announcement in January of a new daily Aer Lingus Gatwick service plus an Aer Lingus Regional Edinburgh service, both to begin at the end of March.
