Flights of fancy: why Shannon stopover is going nowhere
To have large aircraft make 100-mile flights is horrendously inefficient from a maintenance and environmental point of view.
The forcing of B767 and A330 flights onto the route scuppered Aer Arann’s attempts to introduce flights which would have been more conducive to the internal traveller from Shannon to Dublin last year.
Shannon serves only Shannon and district, since no effort has been made to create connecting flights from there to the rest of Ireland.
Like it or not, the aviation hub of Ireland is Dublin, and even that lacks a connection to Waterford, which receives minimal subsidy despite a need for the stimulus regular air service brings.
The cutback of Aer Lingus flights to Dublin and the lack of codesharing with Aer Arann means that it is more convenient for me, as a Cork traveller, to use London Heathrow as a connection instead.
If the 90% Shannon demand claimed by Ms Moody actually exists, then Delta should be able to justify a separate flight, such as US Airways provides from Philadelphia.
Shannon has no rail link to Limerick or Galway and does not serve the wider Western seaboard adequately.
It has enforced traffic and has limited Aer Lingus’s ability to serve the US and Canada.
It has also benefited in ways that other Irish airports do not, such as Aeroflot, Concorde training and troop transport.
When Cork lacked air services, we came up with JetMagic without Government enforcement. Why can’t Shannon do the same?
Mark Dowling,
2, Marlboro Mews,
Wellington Road,
Cork.
