The mother of all wars is getting underway as Shannon Airport and the mid-west region prepare to take on the voracious east coast. At issue is the re-negotiation of the bilateral air treaty between Ireland and the US. Aer Lingus would like a relaxation in the current treaty, which obliges airlines to serve Shannon and Dublin on an equal basis. Aer Lingus argues that, commercially, this ignores the reality that Dublin is the more important gateway.
The Government did the Aer Lingus cause no favour by appointing Maire Geoghegan Quinn to its board last month. When Minister for Transport, Geoghegan Quinn handbagged the Aer Lingus board when it attempted to shelve the compulsory Shannon stopover. The airline eventually got its way, thanks to Geoghegan Quinn's successor, a TD with a seat less vulnerable to west of Ireland pressures.
But now Fianna Fail has three TDs in Clare, Sile de Valera, Tony Killeen and Brendan Daly. One of these seats is vulnerable to any perception of bias by Government against the region. The lobby group SIGNAL has been re-activated to defend Shannon, and an early success has been the recruitment of Jackie Healy-Rae to the cause. The Minister responsible for Aer Lingus, Mary O'Rourke, can expect a torrid few months in trying to balance the commercial interests of the national airline with the political firepower of the western seaboard.