Shannon redundancies planned

Shannon Airport is set to seek voluntary redundancies from its 470 staff when it begins implementing a new business plan early next year, its chairman said yesterday.

Mr Pat Shanahan, who chairs the new Shannon board appointed last month, said yesterday that the airport's business plan would mean job cuts. But he stressed that all losses would be voluntary.

The airport currently employs 470 full-time workers, and 100 seasonal staff. It is understood that the board could seek up to 100 voluntary redundancies from the workforce, but it was not possible to confirm this yesterday.

Speaking at the announcement of nine new Ryanair routes from Shannon to the UK and the continent yesterday, Mr Shanahan said that the airport was planning to offer aggressive discounts to tempt airlines to set up new services and base new craft at the hub.

"We are talking to other airlines as well," he said. "We are hoping to put Shannon on the map, particularly in the area of UK and European destinations."

The five-year discounted charges schedule offered by the airline begins with a fee of €1.50 per passenger departing in the first 12 months. It offers €2.50 in the second year, and €3 in the fourth, fifth and sixth years.

As there is no charge for arrivals, the average charge per passenger works out at half of the amount levied on every departure.

The new structures have prompted both Aer Lingus and UK carrier easyJet to express interest in introducing new services from the airport. The State airline has one craft based there. The British operator, one of Ryanair's competitors, will begin flying once a day to Gatwick from late January.

Mr Shanahan said that Shannon would focus on providing shopping and catering for an increased number of passengers as a way of growing revenues.

Under the Open Skies Agreement between the US and the EU, Shannon is set to lose the "stopover" that forces transatlantic flights to and from Dublin to stop at the airport. This will cut it off from a valuable source of revenue.

Mr Shanahan conceded yesterday that it would have to deal with this change but asked the Government to allow it sufficient time to prepare for it. "We believe that Shannon can transform itself, but we need a sensible transformation period," he said.