Ryanair suspends Shannon bookings from May
Passenger numbers at Shannon will be reduced from a 2007 high of 3.6 million to about 1.25m a year if a replacement carrier is not identified.
A five-year deal between Ryanair and the airport on charges and passenger numbers concludes next April and the Shannon Airport Authority has said it will not enter a new five-year deal due to what it says are Ryanair’s unreasonable demands.
Ryanair is understood to be seeking a 50% cut in its operating costs at Shannon.
As Shannon said no new deal will be reached Ryanair has decided to press ahead with plans to significantly cut jobs and routes at the airport.
The move has been described by the Mayor of Clare, Cllr Tony Mulcahy, as having the ability to turn Shannon Airport into a ghost town.
A spokesman for Shannon Airport said: “Ryanair made an offer that we have rejected on the grounds that it is simply not realistic or viable for the airport to enter into a deal with those terms. The offer includes reducing the number of passengers to just 600,000 from two million and cutting the passenger charges in half, which is simply unrealistic and unaffordable for Shannon Airport.”
The airline will reduce the number of aircraft based at Shannon from four to one and will cut 150 jobs.
When asked if the two are still in talks, a Ryanair spokeswoman said: “Shannon airport has said it will not enter a new deal.”
Earlier this month Shannon Airport chief executive Martin Moroney said Ryanair is seeking an almost free “no charges” deal at Shannon, similar to the one it has in the Canary Islands.
On Ryanair’s website yesterday customers were unable to book flights from Shannon to Alicante, Birmingham, Bristol, Brussels, Carcassonne, Edinburgh, Faro, Girona, Glasgow, Gran Canaria, Krakow, Lanzarote, Liverpool, Lodz, Milan and Murcia and Venice from May 2009.
The only flights available after this date were to London Gatwick, Stansted, Malaga, Nantes, Palma, Paris and Tenerife.
In 2007, Ryanair’s 1.6m passengers accounted for 46% of the 3.6m passengers at Shannon and, last year the airline’s 1.85m passengers accounted for 59.6% of the 3.1m passengers at the airport.
At its peak during the deal, Ryanair operated 32 routes from Shannon. Today it operates 25.
If the cuts go ahead the number of routes will plunge to seven. Ryanair reduced the number of aircraft based at the airport from six to four this summer.
Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said: “Ryanair is busy planning its summer schedules. Unfortunately, for Shannon Airport and Irish tourism while Ryanair moves onwards and upwards Shannon moves backwards and downwards.
“It’s time to axe the tax and for Irish airports to start to compete in the real world, which is a world where governments are axing tourist taxes and slashing airports costs – in some cases to zero.”
