Passengers need a choice of gateway

DES LONG (Irish Examiner letters, March 22) says I used emotive language on the future of Shannon airport (Letters, March 15) and the harm done to our other airports by the Shannon stopover until the open skies deal was agreed recently by the US and the EU.

Mr Long recalled the role of Shannon airport in our industrial development in the 1960s. That is exactly the problem. The airport is in a sort of time-warp ever since piston-engined and first generation jetliners needed it as a refuelling stop between Europe and North America.

That was Shannon’s heyday, but attitudes there have changed little since that time and now it relies on one Government handout after another — the more recent examples include a refurbished terminal with extra airbridges, the new road networks towards Limerick and Ennis and a powerful airport development company.