This article is from page 4 of the 2007-06-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
SHANNON Airport is equipped to cater for more than 5 million passen- gers and will continue to develop in order to cater for any future expan- sion in passenger numbers, according to Airport Director Martin Moroney who was speaking after Ryanair’s announcement of eight new services from Shannon.
“If we see that passenger numbers will exceed five million, which we are well able to take, we will expand accordingly. We are expanding as it
is and we have already started to in- crease the number of departure gates for airlines including Ryanair,” he said.
“We are developing and expanding ahead of growth while Dublin Air- port is behind growth.
‘We are geared to take five million passengers and if we See it expanding beyond that, we will certainly invest. It will be difficult with the popula- tion base but with new road networks set to be finished by 2010, we will be very well placed,” Mr Moroney added.
“With the development of these roads we will try to draw passengers from Kilkenny, Kildare and Mulling- ar because the roads will make Shan- non more accessible than Dublin.
“We are better placed than most other airports and when the Ennis to Galway railway link is completed we will take advantage of that too.
“Galway people are the luckiest people in the world regarding inter- national connections with their own airport, Shannon and Knock but people still tend to travel to Dublin. We believe Shannon can take the
vast majority of this business in the future once the roads are completed and once we have increased both the short haul and transatlantic serv- Cone
Prior to Ryanair establishing its base at Shannon, the airport catered for approximately 2 million passen- gers every year.
“Galway is an important part of our catchment area for both inbound and outbound traffic, and we look forward to working with the tourism and business sector in harnessing support for these new Services”.