This article is from page 14 of the 2014-11-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
SHANNON Airport continues its remarkable rise from the ashes with an unprecedented 30 per cent increase in passenger numbers last month.
New passengers number released yesterday show a year-on-year increase of more than 28 per cent, compared to October of 2013. This represents the largest percentage increase ever recorded in Shannon and comes on the back of consistent growth since the airport gained independent from the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA).
Having been on the verge on being passed out by Knock Airport, and downgraded to Ireland’s fourth choice airport just 20 months ago, Shannon Airport looks set to overtake Cork Airport and reclaim the title of Ireland second airport.
The biggest increase in passengers coming through Shannon came from its European services, which were up an incredible 111 per cent per cent when compared to the same month in 2013.
A total of 42,950 European passengers used Shannon Airport last month – more than double the 20,347 who used the airport in October of 2013.
Transatlantic passengers were up by 15 per cent, from 23,511 in October 2013 to 27,108 last month, thanks in the main to the increased frequency across New York and Boston services.
Shannon’s biggest market, the UK, also grew by 6 per cent last month from 61,681 to 65,243.
“It’s been a really great summer season for Shannon and f nished out with a very strong October. A very encouraging aspect to the growth is that there were gains across our three main markets, Europe, the UK and US,” said airport CEO Neil Pakey.
“Increases in European services are particularly strong thanks to the nine new services this summer season but the US also performed very well as a result of greater frequencies. It was also heartening to see growth on UK services as this is the strongest market for Ireland and a 6 per cent growth month-over-month is quite signif cant. “We have new winter services this year to Berlin, Bristol, Fuerteventura, Krakow, Paris and Warsaw. These, together with our other winter services, provide a really strong array of destinations for weekend or winter sun breaks as well as for business travellers.
“It’s good news also for the region as our winter schedule this year has really good options from an inbound perspective, which is particularly good for tourism operators here as there is a really good winter break offering across the West of Ireland.”