Chief executive officers (CEOs) of major multinational companies across the mid-west yesterday expressed their anger and dismay at the Aer Lingus decision to end its Shannon to London Heathrow service.
Sparking fears of job losses in the region, company executive Ken Sullivan said his diamond manufacturing firm, Element Six, which employs 600 people, "faces a very uncertain future in Shannon if an alternative carrier is not identified". Other executives expressed fears over their companies' scope for further expansion.
Expressing the anger of executives in the region, John O'Brien - of US-owned multinational Molex Ireland Ltd, which employs 500 people - said the company would stop using Aer Lingus and urged other companies to do likewise in protest at the airline's decision.
Mr O'Brien said Molex uses Heathrow as a transit point and the company "provides services to our plants in Europe, and if travel becomes a barrier we will have to relocate these services".
In the first organised response to the Aer Lingus decision, Shannon Development is to hold an emergency meeting of Shannon region and west of Ireland business, tourism and community leaders tomorrow so as to formulate an action plan.
Mr O'Sullivan said 90 per cent of his firm's travel is routed through Heathrow and the Aer Lingus decision "completely undermines the strategy of moving up the value chain and jeopardises the future of these higher-value activities in Shannon".
Damien Clancy, managing director of the Aughinish Alumina plant on the Shannon estuary, said the Aer Lingus decision is "absolutely shocking and will have serious implications for Aughinish". The firm employs 500 people directly and Mr Clancy said 90-95 per cent of its travel is routed through London Heathrow. "If the decision is not reversed, it will result in far less visits to the company and different decisions will be taken."
John Liddy, managing director of pharmaceutical company Roche Ireland, said the Aer Lingus decision "will reduce our ability to maintain relationships with our key customers, therefore limiting scope for business expansion".
Stating that the company is extremely disappointed at the decision, Mr Liddy said the decision will also limit the accessibility of our corporate stakeholders, which could impact future investment.
The managing director of US-owned IT company Avocent International, Kieran McSweeney, said, "The decision will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to bring new investment to the company and will put challenges and strains to investment we already have in place."
Mr McSweeney said the creation of a customer demonstration centre helped the company achieve a turnover of $185 million (€134 million) last year, "but with the Aer Lingus decision that level of growth is not sustainable as we are dependent on the Shannon-Heathrow link for access to and from 45 different countries.
"Removing access to the region and our business base removes the ability for us to influence . . . decision-makers and gives the edge to other locations, most likely outside of Ireland."
