This article is from page 3 of the 2006-10-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
THE Shannon Airport Authority (SAA) yesterday confirmed that passenger numbers at Shannon are up 13 per cent to 2.8 million for the first nine months of this year.
Confirming the continuing growth of Shannon, a SAA spokeswoman said that terminal passenger traffic is up 15 per cent on the corresponding period last year to 2.3 million.
In 2005, transatlantic traffic increased by three per cent.
However, this year with new services available, the important transatlantic sector has shown a 12 per cent increase.
Traffic to UK destinations has increased by 14 per cent, while passenger numbers to Europe have increased by 20 per ceny.
Meanwhile, the number of US troops who have passed through Shannon Airport since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, in the US has exceeded the one million mark.
It has been estimated that Shannon Airport has earned €25m from the Pentagon so far this year and netted around €37m in 2005. The overall figure since the September 11 attacks has put been at around €130m.
In that time, a total of 1,037,765 US military personnel have transited Shannon on an estimated 6,800 flights.
Figures released by the Shannon Airport Authority have confirmed that the number of US military personnel who have transited the mid west airport in the past five years has topped one million.
But the numbers for the third-quarter of this year slumped by almost half on the same period last year due to the pull-out of troop carrier World Airways.
The most recent figures, up to the end of September this year, show 250,220 have passed through the country’s second largest airport.
However, during the third quarter of this year, 41,146 personnel passed through Shannon, compared to over 81,000 in the same period last year.
During the whole of 2001, a total of 91,495 US military personnel passed through Shannon, although the majority of the activity followed the terror attacks of September 11 when the US launched air-strikes in Afghanistan.
In 2002, the figure decreased to 74,870, while the following year, with the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US led invasion of Iraq, 121,943 troops landed at Shannon and their way to or from the Middle East.
In 2004, that number had increased to 158,549 but then more than doubled in 2005, which was a record year for troop activity at Shannon, with 340,600 using Shannon.