Business Opinion/John McManus:The prospect of a continued daily service from Shannon to London Heathrow must now be a dead duck.
The decision by British Midland not to come on to the route when it is vacated by Aer Lingus in January both vindicates the Aer Lingus decision and is a clear signal to the Atlantic Connectivity Alliance, which is lobbying for the retention of the Aer Lingus service, that it's time for a rethink.
The unpleasant truth is that landing and take-off slots at London Heathrow are now far too scarce an asset for an airline to waste - if that is not too pejorative a term - flying to somewhere with the traffic potential of Shannon. BMI looked at the figures and reached the same conclusion as Aer Lingus: there is more money to be made flying from Heathrow to somewhere else.
In Aer Lingus's case the destination is Belfast and, for chief executive Dermot Mannion's sake, they had better have got their sums right given all the trouble it has caused. As ever, time will answer that question, but the Atlantic Connectivity Alliance clearly thinks Mannion has made a mistake. Hence their latest salvo fired last week, which questioned the financial viability of the Belfast to Heathrow service.
Well argued though their case may have been, it was a pointless exercise. As far as getting Aer Lingus to reverse its decision goes, the game really is over. The Taoiseach intimated as much in the Dáil last week when he told the Opposition that, following BMI's decision, it was possible no one would come on the Shannon-Heathrow route to replace Aer Lingus.
But this is hardly the end of the matter. Things may die down for a while but all it will take to rekindle the issue is one multinational closing down in the Shannon region and citing the ending of direct flights to Heathrow as a contributing factor. The actual ending of the service on January 13th will also become a focus for protest.
Over and above that, everybody acknowledges that there is a need to address the real problems caused by the Aer Lingus decision, which are well documented in a report produced by a group of senior officials for the Government.
The best option, certainly from the Government standpoint, must be to move the debate on to how to replace the Shannon-Heathrow service with one to another European hub. The key finding of the report by the senior officials was that the loss of the Heathrow connection would have little impact on transatlantic travel, but would have an adverse effect on connections to Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. But they argued this could be offset by a direct service to another European hub.
And as reported last week, there is a real prospect that such a service could be provided by Air France to Paris Charles de Gaulle. Air France, via its Irish subsidiary CityJet, has been in discussions with Shannon airport and is now mulling a decision.
In the first instance, the decision will be based on its financial analysis, but other factors will also come into play. And what is causing some concern, in Government circles and elsewhere, is that Air France or others may be put off by the Atlantic Connectivity Alliance if it continues to focus so exclusively on getting Aer Lingus to reverse its decision. It is a reasonable point. Why would Air France open a route to Shannon from Paris, when all the significant local groups are hell-bent on getting someone else to fly somewhere else?
The other issue from Air France's perspective is that new routes are always opened on a suck-it-and-see basis. If you were Air France, you would have to think twice about opting for a marginal route such as Shannon to Paris if the consequences of it not working out include becoming a lighting rod for disaffection in the west of Ireland.
The logic of the situation now is that the only show in town is Air France and, rather than scare them off by pursuing the issue of Aer Lingus, the Atlantic Connectivity Alliance should change tack and work to secure Air France. It's a message the Government would be keen to see promulgated.
While there is a certain amount of sense in this, it also has to be treated with some scepticism. Not least because it conveniently gets the Government off the hook over the issue of whether or not it should use its shareholding in the company to try and block the move by Aer Lingus.
But here again another unpleasant truth has to be confronted by the alliance which is that the Government almost certainty cannot use its stake in this fashion and almost certainly won't.
When faced with this and the economic reality about slots at Heathrow, the alliance would be well advised to change tack. If they continue to pursue the impossible, they run the risk of occupying the same space in the State's consciousness as the Shell to Sea campaigners.
While most have a certain sympathy for their position, a growing number just wishes they would accept the reality of the situation that faces them and move on.
