This article is from page 2 of the 2007-07-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
THE early impact of the phased in- troduction of the Open Skies avia- tion deal is being felt at Shannon Airport where transatlantic traffic has dropped by 5 per cent to date this year.
In figures for the first six months of 2007 released yesterday, the Shannon Airport Authority (SAA) confirmed that transatlantic traffic had dropped 5 per cent to 325,000.
This follows American Airlines withdrawing its dedicated Boston Tos mats een
Airport Director, Martin Moroney said: “We are pleased that Aer Lin-
gus, Continental Airlines, Delta A1r- lines and US Airways have commit- ted to Shannon for next winter and summer.”
However, the overall figures for Shannon remains very positive with the six month traffic report showing an increase of 9 per cent in interna- tional terminal traffic.
A record 1.4 million people trav- elled to and from international desti- nations since January | this year.
A statement from the SAA states: ‘Record traffic figures were recorded for the month of June also. Interna- tional terminal traffic numbers rose by 12 per cent when compared to the same time period last year.”
Mr Moroney said, “Our key focus in the coming months will be to en- sure that with significant reductions in our cost structure Shannon will become a viable, self sustaining busi- ness, with capacity and efficiency to grow its airline network in the inter- ests of the region.
We will continue to compete ag- gressively with all the other airports and consolidate our position as Ire- land’s second largest airport.”
Mr Moroney added, “We are pleased with the strong perform- ance of our traffic to date and the outlook for the remainder of the year looks positive. Passenger throughput for the month of June alone is well
ahead of expectation with short haul and transatlantic services increasing by I5 per cent and 4 per cent respec- tively.
The statement continued: “In the six-month period to the end of June the short haul European and UK scheduled network has grown by 16 per cent to over | million passen- ae
“This strong growth is mainly at- tributed to the development of new routes by Ryanair and ongoing de- velopments by Aer Lingus and Cen- Wee DAY eNO nSace
“On charters, over 100,000 passen- gers traveled from Shannon to sun CLA a a reLu (eye hone