Shannon ‘to suffer 20% fall in traffic’

THE proposed Open Skies regime, opening up transatlantic air travel between the US and the EU will result in a drop of about 20% in Aer Lingus traffic at Shannon, industry sources speculated last night.

Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion is expected to make a pledge on a visit to Shannon today to provide 400,000 seats on transatlantic flights in and out of Shannon, when the Open Skies regime kicks in.

Last year Aer Lingus flights between Shannon and the US offered around 550,000 seats and carried approximately 500,000 passengers.