This article is from page 13 of the 2007-03-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 13 JPG
COMMENTING on the recent an- nouncement that a EU-US Open Skies draft agreement has been reached Pat Shanahan, Chairman of the Shannon Airport Authority, said that the chal- lenge will be to address the airport’s cost base, keep existing customers and bring new business in.
The chairman said yesterday that Shannon Airport has been preparing for Open Skies for some time and has built up an extensive range of transat-
lantic services which carried almost 800,000 passengers in 2006.
“The challenge Shannon now faces is that we must persuade airlines to retain their current level of services and develop new ones in an open market.”
He added “I believe that while Open Skies poses a challenge to Shannon Airport, the retention and further de- velopment of year-round transatlantic services and passenger/cargo traffic 1s achievable supported by a strong US marketing campaign, improvements
in road and rail infrastructure in the region and a substantial reduction in our cost base.”
Shanahan added the airport has the required facilities and capacity to service further growth of transat- lantic services and it is the authority’s intention to further enhance those facilities with the establishment of a Full US Customs and Border Protec- tion Inspection post in 2008 which would provide Shannon with an es- sential competitive advantage over other European Airports when devel-
oping additional services.
‘Shannon has the potential to devel- op as a financially and operationally viable airport and the benefits to the airport and wider region of the huge boost in passenger numbers over the past two years are very evident.”
But he stressed the urgency of ad- dressing what he described as an “uncompetitive cost base” in order to meet the business and operational needs of the airport. ““We can then begin to concentrate our efforts on ensuring we become more competi-
tive in our airport charges and our incentive schemes,” he said.
Shanahan added that “We believe we have developed a distinctive west of Ireland market both to and from the US. It is time for a concerted ef- fort by key stakeholders in the west of Ireland supported by a substantial Government tourism-marketing fund to market Shannon throughout the US. It is our aim to reach one million transatlantic passengers per annum within five years of the commence- ment of Open Skies.”