No Sympathy for Shannon

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Editorial / Periscope - Niall O'Dowd

No Sympathy for Shannon

August 23, 2007

By NiallO’Dowd

I’M sorry to say I don’t feel too much sympathy for the folks of the Shannon region in Limerick and Clare who are bemoaning the end of flights between Heathrow Airport in London by Aer Lingus. Over 5,000 protestors showed up on the streets last weekend demanding that the government force Aer Lingus to rescind their decision to change their Heathrow slots from Shannon to the Belfast originating flights.

There has been war in the Shannon region since, with the locals complaining bitterly that their economic livelihoods are being put at stake because of the end of the Heathrow gateway.

The local politicians have mounted high horses of all shapes and sizes demanding the government change the decision.

The problem is most of them are part of that same government, some of them ministers in it, which makes it a horse of a different color.

Frankly it seems a stretch at best that up to 60,000 jobs could be at risk with the lack of service to Heathrow, as some have claimed.

Aer Lingus made a commercial decision, as they are now entitled to do, having been privatized. Perhaps they could have handled it better public relations wise, but nonetheless it was made for the valid reason that the airline can make an awful lot more money out of the Belfast/Heathrow route than the Shannon one.

Alas the Shannon region seems to always demand this kind of special treatment. It is uncomfortably like the situation we American Irish constantly faced with Shannon when the stop over rule was in effect.

I’m sure most readers have found themselves at some point landing in Shannon en route to Dublin and being forced to stay on the ground for a few hours in the very early morning, rather than flying direct to Dublin.

For decades the Shannon region insisted on the precondition that all American flights stop in Shannon first. It was the height of absurdity if your final and only destination was Dublin, rather like being asked to stop in Boston on your way to New York actually, not being asked to, but told to.

I don’t know how many American tourists and business people were put off by the ludicrous stop over and why the successive Irish governments allowed it to go on for so long. It is almost done away with these days, but there is no question the bad memories linger.

The notion that by forcing American flights to stop in Shannon was a way to ensure more business for the area was ridiculous to begin with.

The one lesson you learn early in America is that market forces eventually dictate whether or not a region or a business is successful.

Insisting that people involuntarily disembark at Shannon was never going to be a particularly good selling point, as Shannon found out to its cost and the government finally realized.

Shannon needs badly to have more confidence in itself. It is a beautiful region. The Clare coastline is unsurpassed and the Irish midwest generally is a tourist’s treasure.

Shannon is also a very important base for companies setting up in the region. The airport proved once when it essentially created the first duty free shop in the world that it was capable of great foresight and energy.

These days, ironically, Shannon seems to be kept going as much by the Iraqi war as anything else. Thousands of American soldiers land there on their way back and forth. They are not welcomed by many locals, but as one friend noted, when he was there recently, the Americans were the only ones buying up the duty free and other services.

This latest crisis over Aer Lingus’ decision may bring about the much-needed re-evaluation of the airport and the region and where they need to turn next. It is certainly not in the direction of the poor mouth and the venomous criticism that local politicians have directed at Aer Lingus since the decision was made.

In the end Shannon, like any other European region, should market itself for all the wonderful features and assets it has. It should replace Aer Lingus with another carrier by selling the region hard and it should stop complaining about how it is being treated.

There are few sympathetic ears in America given the numerous involuntary landings that so many of us suffered over the years. It is a region that can do much better.

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