This article is from page 18 of the 2011-11-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
SHANNON’S decline as an airport of international standing has been so alarming that it’s now on the cusp of being relegated to a standing of being only Ireland’s fourth busiest airport behind Dublin, Cork and Knock as passenger freefall accelerates into 2012.
That was the damning verdict of the current state of ill-health at the former hub of the aviation world delivered by Transport Minister, Leo Varadkar, on a visit to the county on Saturday where he addressed the annual Clare Tourism Conference in the Falls Hotel, Ennistymon.
Speaking to The Clare People , Minister Varadkar spelt out Shannon’s decline in stark terms, warning that “things have to change” and that the days of governments propping up Shannon were over as he branded such a policy as “a total failure” for the airport.
“Shannon Airport should be an asset for the region and an asset for the State,” said Minister Varadkar. “It really isn’t that at the moment.
“Passengers have really fallen dramatically, which really worries me. It’s probable that Shannon will fall behind Cork in passenger numbers and maybe even fall behind Knock in the next year or so.
“That would make Shannon Ireland’s fourth airport, where as I think it should be Ireland’s second airport. Things do need to change,” added Minister Varadkar, in admitting that the airport now needs a fresh start.
“Shannon is iconic to the region,” continued Minister Varadkar. “There is a great history attached to it, being one of the first airports in the world and the Freezone and so on, but I do think that at the same time we have to be realistic and ambitious about what can achieved.
“In the past Shannon was very reliant on government protection and government support and the view was always that ‘the government should come in and force airlines to land at our airport and give us money for marketing’.
“That policy has been a total failure. Airports around the world that are successful adopt a different policy. They try to get people to fly to their airport because they want to get there and because it’s cheap to do so.
“Shannon in my view should be competing with Dublin and competing with Knock and doing so vigorously, but that can’t be done with other people’s money.
“Costs in Shannon are high. The cost base in Shannon is very high and there will have to be changes there. Shannon had a very bad experience with Ryanair where they gave Ryanair a very good deal and once that deal was coming to an end, Ryanair were happy to pull the plug and leave them high and dry. For Shannon to work and to be sustainable, it needs to have a diversity of airlines,” he added.