This article is from page 14 of the 2009-01-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
FIGURES released yesterday show that the numbers travelling on the Aer Lingus Belfast-Heathrow route last year fell 22 per cent short of the numbers that travelled on the Heath- row route from Shannon in 2007.
Provisional statistics released by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) show that 257,953 passengers travelled on the Heathrow-Belfast route from January 18 to the end of December.
This compares to the 331,882 pas- sengers on the Shannon-Heathrow route in 2007, which was a 10,594 increase on the 2006 figures.
Last month, Aer Lingus announced the restoration of the Shannon-Hea- throw route from mid-March with a AWA CoROL BIANCO Mis (CSe
Responding to the figures, local county councillor Patricia McCarthy (Ind) said she was not surprised by the figures but the damage Aer Lin- gus did to the region in withdrawing the route was unquantifiable.
“Aer Lingus put a lot of effort into
marketing the Belfast-Heathrow route and the airline was selling tick- ets for £5 which never happened on the Shannon-Heathrow route,’ she SP HLG
The figures indicate that Cork airport was the greatest benefici- ary from the Aer Lingus decision to withdraw the Shannon-Heathrow service with 517,110 travelling on the
Cork-Heathrow route last year com- pared to 470,643 in 2007.
The Belfast-Heathrow _ statistics show that the numbers have been steadily declining since the summer when seasonal factors and the eco- nomic downturn are taken into ac- ore) uh elm
24,817 passengers used the service in September; 24,528 in October; 20,347 in November and 18,967 in December.
Speaking after the restoration of the Shannon-Heathrow service last month, Aer Lingus worker, Brian Slattery said that the company deci- sion to transfer the slots to Belfast “was misguided. It was a bad com- mercial decision. Common _ sense had to prevail and we now need the public support to make these routes AIO Oe ie
He said the restoration of the route was “never mentioned by Aer Lingus management” in the negotiations to achieve cost cutting at Shannon.