This article is from page 9 of the 2012-04-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
TRAFFIC at Shannon Airport is now at a 15-year low with figures for 2012 so far showing an alarming loss of 20 per cent for the same period in 2011 – a hemmorhage of that if it continues will see passenger numbers decline to under 1.3m by year’s end.
This alarming decline of passenger traffic at Clare’s international airport was hammered home by Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar on Friday as he warned once more that Shannon is on its way to being overtaken by Knock Airport and relegated to the fourth biggest airport in Ireland.
“The trend at the moment isn’t good,” said Minister Varadkar. “Shannon has less passengers now that it had back in 1997, where in that same period Knock has increased its passengers by 350 per cent. Even though both airports operate in the same country and the same economy, the trend in Shannnon is down while it’s up in Knock.
“Numbers are already down 20 in Shannon on what they were this time last year and Knock is still growing and it is only a matter of time,” Minister Varadkar warned. “The trend in Knock is upwards, so if one trend is upwards and another is downwards, sooner or later they’ll cross. It will happen sooner or later, but that’s not what I want to happen,” he added.
Minister Varadkar rejected the notion that state aid for Knock amounts to positive descrimation for the Mayo airport at Shannon’s expense, pointing to the hefty subvention for Shannon through the DAA.
“Knock does receive exchequer support and Shannon doesn’t,” Minister Varadkar admitted, “but Shannon directly receives support for the DAA group and the financial transfers from the DAA group to Shannon are nearly three times the exchequer’s contribution to Knock,” he added.
“It’s state-owned and Shannon is a huge asset and it’s very important for the region and our objective is to arrest that decline and Shannon a growth for investment and employment again.”