Brennan accused of Shannon sell-out

THE Government has agreed to a deal that will end the compulsory Shannon stopover, but which Aer Lingus says will double the number of Americans it brings into the country.

The European Commission yesterday won the right to negotiate flight agreements between the EU as a whole entity and the US when a number of countries including Ireland withdrew objections.

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan was accused of selling out Shannon without a fight. However, Mr Brennan insisted he was optimistic about Shannon’s future and there was no decision to remove the stopover.

Under the current US-Ireland agreement US airlines must land as often in Shannon as in Dublin while Aer Lingus is limited to flying into just four airports in the States.

Aer Lingus welcomed the so-called open skies agreement to free-up air travel between the two continents yesterday and urged the Government to begin negotiations with the US on a new deal as soon as possible.

“We are ready to fly into four more gateways in the US as early as October and we believe we could double the number of Americans we bring into the country from one to two million annually inside five years,” said a spokesman for the national airline.

He rejected the idea that scrapping the stopover would mean the end of Shannon airport.

“The current situation is artificially constraining growth in Shannon as well as in the rest of the airports. We believe there is a very significant market for Shannon from the US and we believe this will grow with the opening up of the market,” he said.

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan said Ireland was in a minority at yesterday’s meeting. He also believed European airlines operating in the transatlantic market must have a level playing field to create more business and travel opportunities: “The

Government will carefully monitor the negotiations and assess the draft agreement. We will ensure that Shannon gets at least as much aviation business under any new agreement.”

However, politicians and Shannon airport workers are not happy with yesterday’s decision.

Munster MEP John Cushnahan said: “I am appalled the minister has capitulated without attempting to secure concessions for Ireland as a whole and Shannon in particular.

“Senior commission officials made it clear to me and representatives of the Shannon workforce last week that they had no objections to the Irish Government seeking to include the stop-over as part of our agreement, provided it did not infringe EU competition law.”