The Shannon Debate

As many of you will know, "The Shannon Debate" is the hot topic on the Irish news front at the moment. As a Dubliner (or Paler as the "West" would say), I can't say I feel too strongly about this topic, but it's gotten to the point where there's a lot of whinging and moaning and I figured it was an appropriate time to address the issue and give my opinion on the matter.

THE FACTS:

1. Aer Lingus has cut its Shannon-Heathrow slot and moved it to Belfast.

2. The people in the West of Ireland are very pissed off!

3. People think the Government should intervene.

4. Shannon Airport is a disaster anyway.

So the basic story is that Aer Lingus has decided to cut its service to Heathrow from Shannon and the people of the region feel that is a disaster for the West of Ireland. RTE.ie are running a poll, and so far (when I last checked) the "Situation is over-exaggerated" option is winning out, and fact of the matter is, I agree.

First and foremost this is not (and never should have been) a Government Issue. Aer Lingus is a private company, yes the Government has a 25% stake in the airline, but guess what folks, you have to own at least 51% of any company to make the decisions, Government or not! The only reason they own 25% is to prevent Ryanair taking over Aer Lingus. Don't get me wrong now, I don't like Aer Lingus nor do I like Ryanair, but realisitcally I think they are well within their rights to end the Heathrow service. What annoys me most though here is that the people there must still think Heathrow is the centre of the world!! From what I've read and heard from people I know, Shannon is the most inconvenient place in Europe. All flights to Dublin or the UK from the USA have to stop there for an hour, but apparently new laws will eventually make this stopover unnecessary.

One has to remember that the Aer Lingus decision is based on any decision a business has to make and base it on commercial interests over sentimentality. Thanks to sliabh.net, I was able to pick up some interesting information regarding the debate. In a supposed unbiased interview on RTE, the interviewer implied that Aer Lingus is supposed to act more like the Department of Social Welfare and prop up the local economy in the area like some charity. Wake up people, commercial bodies have no such duty. One person on TV I think it was, could've been radio, as the TV and radio were on simultaneously, stated: "It's the West against the Pale". This somehow implies that the whole debate is a regional and social dog fight mixed with Dublin, and not what it truly is which is a very legitimate corporate decision.

Not having used Shannon myself, I wouldn't be able to comment on the quality of the Airport without having done some research. From several sources, the conclusion can be drawn that Shannon is a mess. One website suggested the airport "might as well be in Southern Italy the way it's run". Without being born before Shannon was built and living through its progression as an Airport I had to look deeper and during the research I learned that Shannon itself has been protected by local politicans for years, pushing forward the "forced stop-over" I mentioned earlier above all things. Another area which suggested bad management at Shannon was the "Fast-Pass self Check in system" installed by Aer Lingus. Dozens of these terminals were installed in Dublin, Cork and even JFK. What about Shannon? Only 2. Why? Local resistance in protest against a system which would make check-ins and overall service in the airport more efficient. Is it any wonder why Aer Lingus want to get the hell out of there???

People are protesting now. Just wait till the forced stop-over is lifted next year and all the big US airlines will pull out too. The EU is watching Governments that try to intervene in matters such as this and ours is no exception!

One comment during the research made an excellent point. Thanks "Kieran" whoever you may be. In his comment, he wanted to know how did the region let itself get so dependent on one service from one airline? Kieran points out that the region itself got into this mess, and only they can get themselves out of it. Good man Kieran!

Personally, I support Aer Lingus in this matter. Not that I was overly interested when I first heard the issue, but when I started to hear all the bull that started after it, I had far more sympathy for them than I had for people of the region.

Bottom line is this:- Aer Lingus are a company and made a commercial decision to leave. The Government has no say as it does not own the company, so you can't go crying to them. Given how bad service at Shannon is, is it really any surprise that Aer Lingus pulled out? Do they expect someone else to fill it up with a service so bad? The whole thing is blown out of proportion if you ask me. If a region has to depend on one service to keep its economy going then there is something wrong there, and no one but the region folk themselves can sort that out. One also has to wonder why we have Shannon airport that is so close to Cork? Cork being a far more interesting place to go ahead of Shannon anyway.

Is the end of Shannon nigh? If you ask me...yes. Not because of the Aer Lingus move, but more on reality. Next year, the EU will have the stop-over clause removed entirely rather than it being relaxed, which will have an obvious effect. The other big deal is the Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport. With the capacity to handle more passengers the effect of this is also evident. Yes Shannon has its perks, being listed as a potential emergency landing zone for the NASA space shuttle, the testing grounds of the now unused Concorde aswell as technically being the only airport in Ireland to be able to accomodate an Airbus A380, but let's face it, the day will never come when Shannon will be supporting an A380 service anyway.

This blog may be of interest, as it seems to be written by a local resident, who feels so strongly over the matter that he has dedicated a blogspot to it: http://aerlingussnnlhr.blogspot.com/

I wonder when I'll be writing a "Time to Let It Go" blog about this one.....

~The Damo