Ryanair has secured a new cut- price deal at Shannon Airport as part of a five-year commitment to expand its routes from the mid-west region.
The Irish Times has learned that the low-cost airline has negotiated a landing charge of 50 cent per passenger on new routes opened from the Co Clare airport. The airline has also negotiated a fee rising from €1 per passenger to under €2, based on growing volume on existing routes. This is a substantial discount to the €7.50 average landing charge at Shannon.
A Shannon Airport Authority spokesman refused to comment on the terms of any new agreement with Ryanair which is understood to have been finalised in recent days. Ryanair would only state that it was in negotiations with hundreds of airports across Europe.
The airline has recently announced the addition of two extra routes between Shannon and London's Stansted Airport and a new service from the airport to Liverpool. The airline currently flies to Frankfurt Hahn, Glasgow Prestwick, Beauvais and Charleroi from Shannon.
Ryanair chief executive Mr Michael O'Leary had told Shannon's board that he wanted it to reduce landing charges per passenger from the current level to less than €1. He has said the airport could only be viable as a low-cost access point.
Mr O'Leary told the board that the airline would almost double the number of passengers using the regional airport by adding 10 new routes to the UK and Europe. He said the routes would bring an additional two million passengers through the airport, which last year had 2.3 million people passing through. He said the new routes would lead to 2,000 direct jobs at Shannon.
Ryanair's arch rival, EasyJet, has announced that it will begin flying from Stansted to Shannon in January with four flights a day.
The authority's chairman, Mr Patrick Shanahan, has said the airport intends to switch to a new business model to attract new airlines. This would involve reducing charges to increase passenger numbers, he said. The board intends to double the passenger throughput over the next three to five years.
The continuation of the Shannon stopover remains uncertain and could be under threat as a result of the negotiations on a possible "open skies" deal between the EU and US.
