*CEO of the Shannon Airport Group, Mary Considine. Photograph: Brian Arthur
SHANNON AIRPORT remains on course to exceed pre-pandemic passenger levels this year.
As reported by The Clare Echo last week, an independent analysis by global aviation publication, Air Service One found Shannon Airport to be Ireland’s best recovered airport since the pandemic.
This endorsement was hailed by Shannon Airport Group CEO, Mary Considine. “That was great and really welcome for our own staff who have worked really hard since the pandemic in what was a tough time to get to where we are today and we don’t take it for granted”.
Ryanair issued a further vote of confidence in Shannon with the announcement of its winter schedule which includes Faro and Liverpool for the first time plus increased frequency for six routes. On top of this, the airline is to base an extra aircraft in Co Clare.
Mary Considine labelled Ryanair as “a really important partner for us”. She stated “they are bringing in one new Boeing Gamechanger aircraft, it is more fuel efficient and it will be based here from this winter. “Extra aircraft means they have more opportunity to add more routes and more destinations, we’re seeing routes that traditionally would have stopped at the end of September period like Faro, Liverpool continue this year through the winter period so that is really good news. It is on the back of Ryanair’s announcement earlier this year that they were opening a significant maintenance base here in Shannon, it is solidifying their operation and growing their operation here in Shannon”.
An additional thirty cabin crew and pilots will be based at Shannon following Ryanair’s decision to base the 197-seater Gamechanger in the county. New aircraft like this are part of the “sustainability journey,” Mary explained. “We’re all working really hard to decarbonise the industry we work in so I think new efficient aircraft are really welcome and it is great to see new aircraft coming into the fleet. We’ve already seen Aer Lingus bring on the 321s which again are more fuel efficient aircraft, it is really positive that they are putting their new aircraft into Shannon which is good in itself, it is all of us working together to decarbonise aviation”.
Passengers numbers for Ryanair at Shannon are set to hit 1.4m by the end of 2023, this represents a 70 percent increase on pre-pandemic figures. “They have three aircraft based here, they will be up on 1.3m passengers this year, in total Shannon will exceed its pre-pandemic passenger levels. We’ve had a very strong year, we’ve seen strong return on the transatlantic with Aer Lingus and United, we’ve seen Delta coming back, all of that is good news and it is all down to hard work. All those routes will continue to be here so long as we have people using and supporting the Airport, that is the crucial thing,” Considine said.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Mary was confident Ryanair would increase its capacity next year off the back of the 2023 summer season performance. “We hope to have Ryanair down here again next summer to launch the summer schedule and see extra capacity. Where routes are working well, they are adding new capacity and more frequency, it is good for people because it is improving the timings, the options and the choice, hopefully we will see that grow. Delta are coming back daily on JFK for next summer, that is really good and United will be on Chicago and New York, we’ll have the daily transatlantic year-round and Paris is doing really well with Aer Lingus, helped by the Rugby World Cup but unfortunately we’re out now but it has been a positive recovery for Shannon”.
Home carriers such as Ryanair and Aer Lingus remain the most valued partners for Shannon but the Lissycasey woman outlined they are in ongoing talks with other airlines. “We’re always talking to other airlines but traditionally if you look across Europe your biggest carriers would always be your home-based carriers which is Ryanair and Aer Lingus here in Shannon, we are talking to other airlines and we will always be talking to them. Periodically we will have new transit operators come and go. Our route development team are just back from World Routes, they are always out there talking to airlines”.
On the recent impact to flights where dozens of services were impacted by heavy fog, Mary admitted that work to the runway at Shannon hindered their procedural responses at this time. “It was unfortunate the fog we got in the last couple of weeks and the duration of it last Sunday week which was longer than normal. Ordinarily we would have low visibility procedures but they were temporarily out because we are doing a short period of upgrade works which you can see here and that work is almost complete so hopefully that is behind us”.
