This article is from page 16 of the 2007-03-27 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
SHANNON airport worker’s lobby eroup, SIGNAL has called on the Minister For Transport to immedi- ately sign over the €53 million in funding promised in the wake of agreement on Open Skies.
The money is to support a five-year action plan to sustain transatlantic air services at Shannon following the end of the stop-over.
The money would be split between a tourism promotional fund of €44 million and a route support fund of €9 million.
A spokesman for SIGNAL said that it is “critical that Minister Cul- len sanction the €53 million plan. He must act as quickly as possible to demonstrate confidence in the re- gion.”
Fine Gael TD Pat Breen has claimed that Aer Lingus Heathrow landing slots serving Shannon were in danger of being sold off, following weekend speculation that the airline’s 23 pairs of slots were now worth up to €700 million.
Deputy Breen said that with Heath- row being “the most important trans- atlantic gateway in Europe, with 40 per cent of European-US traffic, it is vital that Shannon receives an as- surance from Aer Lingus chief ex- ecutive Dermot Mannion that the existing slots serving Shannon will be retained.”
Deputy Breen said that while Man- nion recently re-stated his previous verbal commitment that 400,000 passengers would be put through Shannon annually “there has been no mention of new services, expan- sion of existing services or the mar- keting of existing routes through seat Sales. Indeed, direct services have been cut back since yesterday with the rescheduling of the daily Boston direct service through Dublin”
Independent Deputy, James Breen, warned that the agreement will lead to “cherry picking” by airlines.
“In the immediate aftermath of the announcement of Open Skies Aer Lingus announced new routes to San Francisco, Orlando and Washington. Significantly all of those new routes
will operate from Dublin Airport. Dublin Airport is to be the subject of a €2 billion investment while Shan- non struggles to receive even a few million to overhaul the existing ter- minal’, he said.
And Fine Gael election candidate, Madelaine Taylor-Quinn said that “it is critically important that Shan- non airport gets control of its own destiny and is not dictated to from Dublin, and I am calling on the Taoi- seach and the Minister for Transport to make a clear and unequivocal commitment that Shannon will be handed over debt free immediately.”
Indenpendent MEP Marian Harkin said that the transitional arrange- ments in the Open Skies Agreement are “virtually worthless for Shannon Airport