Aviation entrepreneur slams Shannon proposal

An influential aviation entrepreneur said yesterday the outcome for Shannon Airport under current Government proposals “will be uninteresting, moribund and people losing jobs”.

Dómhnal Slattery, chief executive of aircraft leasing firm, Avolon, was speaking at an Irish Business Aviation Convention at Dromoland Castle, which was organised by Shannon Airport and Shannon Development.

Mr Slattery also hit out at the Government’s move to establish a task force and two steering groups to chart Shannon Airport’s future.

“Committees are a useful forum, but don’t start businesses and are very rarely effective,” he said.

In May, the Government announced that Shannon would be separated from the Dublin Airport Authority, but remain in public ownership.

Mr Slattery said that while the committees contain some great people, “none of them are entrepreneurs”.

He said the Government “has pretended to do something by putting Shannon into an interregnum, but has only kicked the can down the road, make it someone else’s problem and put off the ultimate decision”.

He said the Government should privatise Shannon.

“This blather about Shannon being a strategic asset is a total irrelevancy. Airports that are privately owned all over the world do better than airports that are government owned. Period.

“Heathrow, that is a strategic asset and it is privately owned. Edinburgh Airport — strategic asset for Scotland and it is privately owned. Shannon — who cares from a strategic asset perspective?”

Mr Slattery said Shannon needs a champion to embody the future of the airport in the mould of the late founder of Ryanair, Tony Ryan.

He said that the commercial aircraft, leasing and financing space was really started eight miles down the road at Shannon by Mr Ryan.

“It’s now a business that in the next five years will finance probably $300bn worth of aircraft.

“Therefore there is a great heritage, history, legacy in this physical jurisdiction about building great businesses in aviation, and in my mind, business aviation has a long-term core, strategic rationale for its existence and it will continue to grow.”

Business aviation finance expert Aoife O’Sullivan, who also addressed delegates, said Shannon “is sitting on a goldmine in terms of business aviation”.

Partner with London- based Gates & Partners, Ms O’Sullivan said that the business aviation industry is a very buoyant one. “I think in terms of Shannon, it is sitting on a goldmine in business aviation.

“The opportunities here are extensive. The great thing about this business is that these assets fly and there is no reason why you can’t structure a great business from Shannon, absolutely none.”