An early-morning commuter service from Shannon to Dublin will resume after a six-month break when two new operators at the airport launch their services in the coming months.
Aer Arann will operate a daily service from March 11th and will increase it to two flights a day from April 1st.
Meanwhile, a new start-up operation, Skynet, will begin a twice-daily service from April 29th, which is timed to connect with its flights from Dublin to Moscow, via Warsaw and, probably, Geneva, following an agreement reached with the Russian state airline, Aeroflot.
It will also fly to as yet unspecified EU destinations.
"We have a number of other alternatives. We are designated by the Department of Public Enterprise for Geneva and Warsaw," Mr Dick Healy, a former aviation consultant with Aer Rianta, who is heading up the operation, said.
He added that there was increased demand for flights to Poland, with companies like AIB and CRH having operations there. "There is a lot of business and there is a lot of interest in tour groups going to Krakow via Warsaw, all of which is going out over London and other European airports at the moment."
The resumption of the early-morning service from Shannon by the two new operators follows its cancellation by Aer Lingus last October. It will not be operating its afternoon service from April.
But business people will be able to choose between a Skynet departure flight of 5.30 a.m. and Aer Arann times of 7.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. Mr Cathal O'Connell, Aer Arann's commercial manager, said the airline had a target of booking 30,000 passengers within 12 months.
Skynet's Mr Healy said: "If anything we will complement each other."
Between $7 million and $10 million is being invested in Skynet.
The new airline has leased two Boeing 737s and is waiting on its certificate from the Irish Aviation Authority. It plans to begin a marketing campaign next month.
Skynet has a code-sharing agreement with Aeroflot, meaning that tickets and flight numbers for one airline can be used on the other. The affiliation will enable Aeroflot, which uses Shannon as a transit stop between Moscow and Havana, to get access to European airports which it otherwise could not do because of its non-EU status.
Aer Arann, meanwhile, announced this week it is expanding its Irish operations by going into Shannon with its fleet of 50-seater ATR42 turboprop aircraft.
It has operated a Cork-Dublin service since May 2000 and also flies to the five airports in Kerry, Galway, Knock and Carrickfinn, Co Donegal.
Aer Arann is owned by the Galway-based businessman, Mr Padraig Ó Céidigh, and has a turnover of €25 million and projected passenger numbers of 360,000 this year.
Welcoming the announcements, Mr Tadhg Kearney, the Limerick-based chairman of the Air Transport Users Council said: "It is all very good news. The Aer Arann announcement is particularly important because for the first time it gives Shannon a designated daily service to Dublin.
"There is a view that that route has never been maximised to its full capacity."
Mr Martin Moroney, Aer Rianta's head of business development in Shannon, added that the company was reasonably happy with traffic development so far this year. Ryanair began a new Paris service on February 14th and Air Canada will begin a daily service to Toronto in June.
Readers who wish to contact this column can do so by dialling: 01 6758628