Shannon Airport in Crisis as Dramatic Drop in Commercial Traffic – Carey

Clare Fine Gael TD Joe Carey has today said that recent figures prove that Shannon Airport is punching way below its weight in terms of commercial activity through the airport.

Deputy Carey was responding to figures released that show that commercial traffic through the airport fell by 32% last year. The national average drop in aviation traffic nationally was 3%, highlighting the extent to which Shannon is in crisis.

Deputy Carey said that a decade of under-funding and political ambivalence has brought Shannon to its knees and a new future plan for the Airport is now needed as a matter of urgency.

Deputy Carey said:

“We now have irrefutable proof that Shannon is punching way below its commercial weight. If we look at national figures for last year, the drop in traffic through Cork and Dublin Airports was just 9%. Yet, Shannon suffered a 32% drop in commercial activity during the same period. How can it be that the Mid-West, which has one of the best tourist products in Europe should suffer should a significant drop in business through the Airport?

When we look at figures over the past five years, we see that traffic through the airport has almost halved since n Commercial Traffic – Carey

Clare Fine Gael TD Joe Carey has today said that recent figures prove that Shannon Airport is punching way below its weight in terms of commercial activity through the airport.

Deputy Carey was responding to figures released that show that commercial traffic through the airport fell by 32% last year. The national average drop in aviation traffic nationally was 3%, highlighting the extent to which Shannon is in crisis.

Deputy Carey said that a decade of under-funding and political ambivalence has brought Shannon to its knees and a new future plan for the Airport is now needed as a matter of urgency.

Deputy Carey said:

“We now have irrefutable proof that Shannon is punching way below its commercial weight. If we look at national figures for last year, the drop in traffic through Cork and Dublin Airports was just 9%. Yet, Shannon suffered a 32% drop in commercial activity during the same period. How can it be that the Mid-West, which has one of the best tourist products in Europe should suffer should a significant drop in business through the Airport?

When we look at figures over the past five years, we see that traffic through the airport has almost halved since 2005, and just 18,000 flights came through the airport in 2010. Clearly then Shannon is performing far worse than other state airports.

The reasons for this are multiple, but I believe that the ambivalence of Fianna Fáil in government has sucked the economic lifeblood out of Shannon Airport. W