Ryanair investment in Shannon ‘will bring one million passengers’
THE chief executive of Ryanair has said a fresh investment from his airline will see more than one million passengers fly through Shannon over the next year.
Eddie Wilson was speaking to the Limerick Leader after the budget airline confirmed a number of new routes from the local airport, including the return of services to London Luton and Birmingham in Britain, plus flights to Budapest, Turin, Fuerteventura and the Scottish capital of Edinburgh.
This summer, Ryanair will operate 16 routes from the local airport, with 18 in the winter.
And Mr Wilson said it’s the engagement Shannon has kept with his firm during the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the vast majority of the flights out of the base were grounded, which has led to this week’s good news.
He said: “We lost almost €1bn last year. So it’s not unreasonable for us to say we are going to apportion our assets which are completely moveable to where we have long-term certainty on costs. Airports have engaged with us throughout the pandemic, thinking ahead. Shannon is in the same boat as Stockholm, Turin and Paris – all these places have come to us, because they know coming out of the pandemic, due to all the airline bankruptcies, there are going to be less airline seats.”
In a statement, Ryanair says its new services will support the creation of 600 new jobs in the Mid-West.
Mr Wilson says in terms of the airline’s base at Shannon, around 65 pilot and cabin crew jobs are back in place.
He also indicated that if there is sufficient demand for some of the new routes, services could increase.
“Absolutely,” he said when asked, “And when you are recovering from a pandemic, you tend to take a hedged approach. It’s why we have one or two services to some destinations a week. Those routes which work will get more. The great thing about having a based aircraft is if a route doesn’t work, you can switch to another one and Shannon won’t suffer.”
Mr Wilson says Ryanair is effectively planning to exceed it’s pre-pandemic passenger numbers through Shannon.
It comes in stark contrast to Aer Lingus which is closing its base in the airport, with little clarity on its schedule, including the crucial London-Heathrow link.
“Aer Lingus is part of the wider IAG group which most people conveniently forget. It’s headquartered in Madrid. We are point-to-point and fly to secondary airports as well as major airports. You are able to grow traffic based ion price,” added the Ryanair boss.