Airport authority: The Shannon Airport Authority is to offer new discounts on charges to Aer Lingus in a bid to encourage the airline to continue its service to London Heathrow, writes Martin Wall.
The authority believes the new measures, together with the airline's own restructuring plans at the airport, could allow it to generate additional savings of €4 million per year.
Campaigners opposed to Aer Lingus's plans to end its Shannon-Heathrow service have described the authority's initiative as significant and said it should be considered by shareholders in the airline.
Speaking at a press conference after a special meeting of the authority yesterday, executive chairman Pat Shanahan said it had looked at the current airport charges levied for the Heathrow route and the re-structuring plans set out by Aer Lingus for its operation at Shannon. He said it had carried out this analysis following comments by Aer Lingus chief Dermot Mannion that the airline could make more money on its new routes from Belfast.
"There are further cost savings that can be made on the Shannon-Heathrow route.
"These savings come from a combination of airport charges which Aer Lingus is currently paying and a restructuring of its own business in Shannon," he said.
Mr Shanahan believed these measures could produce total additional savings of €4 million per year for Aer Lingus. Mr Shanahan said he did not want to go into details on the new discounts which the authority was prepared to offer Aer Lingus.
"If Aer Lingus abandons the Heathrow route, we will still have to attract a new airline into that a route. In that attraction Aer Lingus will be able to benefit from the cessation they have announced," he said.
The chairman of Shannon Development John Brassil said the new initiative put forward by the authority was significant given that Aer Lingus had maintained that its decision to end its Heathrow service was based purely on commercial considerations.
"If it is possible to put an extra €4 million into an already profitable route I am sure that the shareholders would be very interested in hearing it", he said.
Mr Shanahan said the airport authority had been "shocked" at the decision by Aer Lingus to end the route to Heathrow. He said that it only heard of the decision last weekend.
He said that the authority had been in discussions with Aer Lingus with a view to seeing it expand its services from Shannon.