Shannon Airport Welcomes New Aer Lingus Gatwick Service
January 5, 2011: Shannon Airport Director Mary Considine has described Aer
Lingus’ decision to establish a daily route to London Gatwick airport from March
27th as a welcome vote of confidence in the airport for the New
Year.
The service will originate in Gatwick with a 6.50 a.m.
departure and will be the earliest daily London service to Shannon, arriving at
8.15 am. The return-leg from Shannon departs at 9 a.m., arriving in Gatwick at
10.25. Bookings for the flight can be made from today on the Aer Lingus website
www.aerlingus.com.
Welcoming the announcement, Ms. Considine said: “The new Gatwick
service is an excellent start to the New Year for Shannon and is something we
have been working with Aer Lingus on during recent months. For Aer Lingus to add
Gatwick, not least with its early arrival time at Shannon, to its growing
network of services is a real boost for us and, indeed, the greater West of
Ireland region. Gatwick is Britain’s second largest airport, serving more than
200 destinations in 90 countries across short and long-haul point-to-point
services so this is very significant from a connectivity point of view.
“We have no doubt that 2011 will bring challenges but we have
started the year where we left off last year. Despite 2010 being probably the
toughest year for aviation globally for a long time, we finished very much on
the upward curve, with the commencement of a new Aer Lingus Paris Charles de
Gaulle service on Friday, December 17th plus a 60% increase in Aer Lingus
Regional’s Manchester services at the end of October.
“In addition,
we were delighted to see Ryanair last month announce the establishment of a new
Fuerteventura service from February as well as reinstate Nantes, Malaga and
Palma-Mallorca services. On top of all this, we also have the new incentive
scheme launched by the DAA in December for all three state airports, which will
see passenger charges waived once an overall threshold for the airports of 23.5
million passengers is reached. We believe that this will be a key incentive for
airlines to expand their services and this can only be good for Shannon and,
indeed, for the region if targets are reached.”
Responding to the
Aer Lingus announcement, Shannon Airport Authority Chairman Brian O’Connell
said: “The last quarter has again shown Shannon Airport’s resilience despite the
difficult economic climate. It is clear that airlines continue to recognise the
strong market there is for services at Shannon Airport and it is extremely
encouraging to see us starting off 2011 in the same vein as we finished 2010,
which is very much on the up.
"This addition of a new Gatwick
service is part of Shannon Airport’s move to build a network of sustainable
passenger services for the region with excellent connectivity to key
hubs.”
Ends
For further information please contact
Eugene Hogan on Tel: 087 249 7290
