O’Leary laments Shannon rebuff

RYANAIR chief executive Michael O’Leary has said if Shannon Airport doesn’t want to be competitive, it is its own loss.

Mr O’Leary made his comments in a letter where he reveals that the Shannon Airport Authority (SAA) turned down Ryanair’s offer of renewing its five-year deal when Ryanair demanded that it pay €1 per departing passenger. That charge was 50% down on the €2 Ryanair paid per passenger in its deal with Shannon that expired last April.

Largely as a result of the Ryanair reduction in services, Shannon Airport is projecting a 28% drop in passenger numbers this year from 2.8 million to 2 million. The €1 charge is 75% lower than the SAA’s standard passenger charge of €4 on short-haul routes, though substantial discounts are available to operators of new routes.

In response to criticism of Ryanair’s move by members of Clare County Council over reducing its Shannon base by 80%, Mr O’Leary told Clare County manager, Tom Coughlan in his letter: “I am all in favour of promoting and investing in Shannon airport, but not if it is going to be uncompetitive or cost my passengers or my shareholders more money than other hungrier airports elsewhere in Europe.”

Mr O’Leary said the €1 per passenger charge “would still have resulted in Ryanair paying significantly higher fees at Shannon than we do at many other Spanish, Italian and Greek airports, where governments in response to the tourist crisis are now providing 100% rebates on airport costs”.

Mr O’Leary said through the five-year deal, Ryanair had opened more then 30 routes to the airport and showed that Shannon can be a gateway for low-cost air travel to the midwest and western seaboard.