US army account for Shannon increase

clare | anti-war / imperialism | news report Thursday June 19, 2003 12:36 by Eoin Dubsky

Limerick Leader article

Below is an article I just found online from the Limerick Leader on Shannon Airport military use, by Keith Kelly. (Peas and chips from Turkey - Eoin)

ALMOST eight per cent of passenger movement through Shannon Airport in the first four months of this year was accounted for by US military personnel, figures released have shown.

And that eight per cent accounts for the actual increase in passenger numbers which have travelled through the airport on those first four months of the year.

According to Aer Rianta, traffic through Shannon Airport has increased by 7 per cent to over 630,000 passengers for the first four months of the year.

The airport body also claims that this figure could have been much higher had Ryanair not discontinued its service from Shannon to Hahn in Germany.

However it has also become clear that military traffic through the airport remains high, with a rough ratio of one in every 12 passengers who travel through Shannon Airport being US military personnel.

According to Aer Rianta, 16,677 US troops travelled through the airport on 185 flights in January; that figure dropped in February to 10,368 troops on 114 flights; the figures dipped again in March when 9,584 troops travelled through Shannon on 112 flights; but increased in April when the airport saw 11,329 troops travel on 123 flights - a total of 47,958 troops on 534 flights.

"I would stress that while this business does provide a return to the airport, in terms of airport fees it is a very small part of our overall passenger throughput and we are concentrating all our efforts on developing terminal traffic at Shannon.

"This type of transit traffic is ad hoc business, it is not the type of traffic we depend on,” a spokesperson for Aer Rianta stressed when releasing the figures to the Limerick Post.

And the spokesperson has welcomed the general increase in passenger figures through the airport which, while not mirroring the increase of 28 per cent seen in the European market, has been welcomed as a step in the right direction following a decline in air traffic activity following the terrorist attacks on America in September 2001.

The fact that confidence has again grown in air travel, as well as in the American market, can be seen by the fact that there has been a re-introduction of some Shannon-America routes.