Shannon Airport
Shannon Airport
Shannon Airport (Irish: Aerfort
na Sionna) (IATA: SNN, ICAO: EINN) is one of Ireland's three primary
international airports, along with Dublin and Cork. In 2017, 1.751 million
passengers passed through the airport, making it the third-busiest airport in
the country after Dublin and Cork. Shannon Airport is located in Shannon,
County Clare, and mainly serves Limerick, Ennis, Galway and the south-west of
Ireland. The longest runway in Ireland, at 3,199 metres (10,495 ft), is located
at Shannon, which was a designated landing site for the Space Shuttle.
Establishment, 1936-1945
In the late 1930s, transatlantic
air traffic was dominated by flying boats, and a flying boat terminal was
located at Foynes on the south side of the Shannon Estuary. However, it was
realised that changing technology would require a permanent runway and airport.
In 1936, the Government of
Ireland confirmed that it would develop a 3.1-square-kilometre (1.2 sq mi) site
at Rineanna for the country's first transatlantic airport. The land on which
the airport was to be built was boggy, and on 8 October 1936 work began to
drain the land. By 1942 a serviceable airport had been established and was
named Shannon Airport. By 1945 the existing runways at Shannon were extended to
allow transatlantic flights to land.
When World War II ended, the
airport was ready to be used by the many new post-war commercial airlines of
Europe and North America. On 16 September 1945 the first transatlantic proving
flight, a Pan Am DC-4, landed at Shannon from Gander. On 24 October 1945, the first scheduled
commercial flight, an American Overseas Airlines DC-4, Flagship New England,
stopped at the airport on the New York City–Gander–Shannon–London route.
Independent operation, 2012 to present
East-facing side of the terminal
building
In December 2012, it was
announced that Shannon Airport would separate from the Dublin Airport
Authority, who still own Dublin and Cork airports. On 31 December 2012 at 11:59
pm, Shannon Airport became a publicly owned commercial airport and is now
operated and run by the Shannon Airport Authority plc. Shannon announced a
target in 2012 to grow its passenger numbers to 2.5 million annually within
five years. However, Shannon has fallen short of its stated targeted figure with
just 1.74 million flying through the airport in 2017.
In March 2013, the new company
appointed Neil Pakey as its first CEO. Traffic figures for June 2013 report an
8% increase on the previous year, the first time a traffic increase has been
recorded in three years. On 21 March 2013, Ryanair announced a new twice-weekly
route to Alicante, Spain to begin on 5 June for the summer months. That brought
Shannon's total to 33 seasonal scheduled summer routes. In August 2013 Aer
Lingus announced a 1x weekly service to Lanzarote every Saturday during the
winter months using an A320. In October 2013, United Airlines confirmed it will
increase capacity by 88% on its Shannon-Chicago route for 2014. In late 2013,
Aer Lingus announced 2 new routes to Málaga, Spain (two weekly) and to Bristol,
UK (one daily). Ryanair also announced 8 new routes from Shannon to continental
Europe. The new routes began from the start of April 2014, and a second Boeing
737-800 was based at Shannon to accommodate the extra 300,000 passengers a year
it would bring in. The destinations announced were Berlin Schonefeld, Beauvais,
Memmingen, Warsaw Modlin, Kraków, Nice, Faro, and Fuerteventura.
On 4 July 2014, the "Bank of
Ireland Runway Night Run" featured 1,200 people running along Shannon's runway
to raise money for charity.
In late 2014, Aer Lingus Regional
operator Stobart Air said that they would close down their Shannon base in
early 2015. They returned in June 2015 operating 6 flights weekly Birmingham
service followed by 6 flights weekly Edinburgh service. In late 2015, they
announced a new CEO for Shannon, Matthew Thomas. Ryanair announced that it will
be ending its Paris and Memmingen routes in late 2016, and it also reduced its
Manchester and London Stansted routes. Ryanair is aiming for 720,000 passengers
in Summer 2017 even though that they were close to 800,000 in Summer 2016. In
October 2016, SAS announced a new route to Stockholm from August 1, 2017 to
October 7, 2017. Shortly after that, Lufthansa announced a weekly service to Frankfurt
running from April to October in 2017. In September 2017 Ryanair announced a
new Route to Reus. It will run through summer 2018 operating 2x weekly
(Tuesdays and Saturdays) replacing the route to Berlin. The same day Air Canada
announced a new 4x weekly service to Toronto with the Boeing 737 MAX. In
February 2018, Ryanair announced it would resume flights to Bristol and
Liverpool from May 2018. In late 2018, Ryanair announced a new 2x weekly
service to Ibiza, and the resumption of flights to East Midlands, both
beginning in April 2019.
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