This article is from page 3 of the 2006-05-09 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
THE largest carrier of US military personnel through Shannon Airport has confirmed that it is “reviewing possible alternatives to Shannon” for some of its operations, a move which could see the airport lose millions of euro worth of business.
There has been speculation in recent days that World Airways will relocate part or all of its refuelling and technical operation at Shannon, to the German city of Leipzig. The company made a similar move in February 2003 when it diverted 17 of its regular flights to Frankfurt, all of which returned to Shannon some months later.
World Airways, which is the world’s largest transporter of US military personnel, uses Shannon as a refuelling and technical stop for aircraft transporting troops to and from Afghanistan, the Gulf and US bases in Europe. Two other carriers, North American Airlines and American Trans Air, also use Shannon. However, World Airways is at present Shannon’s largest “technical transit airline partner”.
“We are reviewing possible alternatives to Shannon for some of our operations but no decision has been concluded,” a spokesman for World Airways confirmed. “We are looking at operational factors for us, including better aircraft and crew utilisation, because we already have several operations in Germany.”
But, he added, “Shannon has always been one of our preferred locations in Europe and will continue to be so, regardless of the outcome of our current review.”
Shannon is understood to have earned an estimated €14m during the first three months of this year from US military flights, with over 116,450 service personnel transiting through. This represented a 21 per cent increase on the same period last year. The Shannon Airport Authority is believed to have earned around €100m from the Pentagon in the past four years.
A spokesperson for the SAA said, “We have not been made aware of any plans by any airline to withdraw services from Shannon Airport and continue to have an exceptionally good working relationship with all our technical transit airline partners.
“But the technical transit business is ad-hoc in nature and subject to intense competition between many international airports”.
Prominent anti-war activist Edward Horgan said he was sceptical of a World Airways pullout: “They moved briefly from Shannon in Feb 2003 and came back again. Can we bring back to life all those little children who have been killed by soldiers who we allowed pass through Shannon?”