Airport hopes to secure humanitarian aid base deal

SHANNON Airport has turned a corner and is expected to break even next year.

It is also hoping to be the European base for the distribution of humanitarian aid worldwide and is working on securing this. This would result in extra revenue for the airport through landing and storage charges.

According to hotelier and chairman of the Shannon region of the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF), Michael Vaughan said the airport does not need independence from the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) but it does need to have the right to run its own affairs.

“We need autonomy more than independence. With independence comes the issue of debt but Shannon could still operate within the ownership structure of the DAA.

“If people think we’ve gone quiet in Shannon we have but it is because we are working on doing business a different way and the fruits will be seen in the next few years,” he added.

He said one of the biggest failings of the Shannon region has been a political failing.

“Cork has Micheál Martin but because of political failings we have had no action in Shannon. We are now calling on Michael Noonan to leave a legacy in Shannon,” he said.

He said that the recent offer from Ryanair whereby the airline was looking for a special incentive deal from Shannon to increase flights there would not have been sustainable in the long-term.

“This would have been a desperate deal and the airport isn’t desperate at the moment,” he said, adding that there’s no “major silver bullet solution” to the success of Shannon.

Mr Vaughan said that the smaller aircrafts with about 70 seats, such as the Aer Lingus regional planes suit the airport better.

He said that Shannon Airport has now found an aircraft that suits it and they’ve discovered that they’d like to explore that more.

He also called for Tourism Ireland and Fáilte Ireland to be merged saying there is a huge duplication of resources among tourist bodies.

“There needs to be a complete review of tourism,” he said.

Mr Vaughan has also warned that up to 5,000 jobs will be lost in the industry unless the decline in tourism figures is aggressively reversed. He said that if the plummeting figures were not addressed the country’s hotel industry has no future.

Mr Vaughan was at the IHF conference in Cavan yesterday, which was attended by about 400 hoteliers.

Some of the biggest concerns facing hoteliers are local authority rates, wage and utility costs and bank financing.

Hoteliers also want the Government to introduce a “guarantee scheme” to help businesses access credit and have suggested the creation of a “reconstruction or development bank”.

Figures show that NAMA has about 139 hotels under its control, including 82 in Ireland.