merrion street

Transport Minister Leo Vardakr has welcomed today’s announcement by Ryanair to boost its services at Shannon Airport with 300,000 new seats per annum on eight new routes to the UK and continental Europe.

This deal alone represents passenger growth of almost 15% at Shannon Airport next year, only one year after Minister Varadkar granted the airport full independence and one week after the Government reduced the travel tax to €0 in the Budget. It also marks the end of five years of falling passenger numbers.

Minister Varadkar said:

This announcement of eight new routes by Ryanair is further evidence of the success of the Government’s decision to break up the State airport monopoly, and allow Shannon Airport to compete on its own and cut its own deals.

After years of sustained contraction, it looks like Shannon Airport has finally halted the dramatic downward slide of the previous five years. The airport is predicting that this year’s outturn will be on a par with last year’s total of 1.39 million passengers, or even marginally above that. That would be a major achievement for the airport in its first year of independence from the DAA. Having halted the dramatic downward slide of the previous five years, this announcement by Ryanair helps the airport to reverse that trend.