Shannon Airport predicts fall in passenger numbers over Boeing grounding

Shannon Airport believes passenger numbers will fall this year after Norwegian Air said it would continue re-routing transatlantic flights scheduled for there and Cork to Dublin.

Safety regulators in Europe, the US and other jurisdictions grounded the Boeing Max 737 in March following two crashes and the craft are not expected to be airborne again until December.

Norwegian, which intended using the plane on transatlantic services from Ireland, said on Wednesday that due to its continued grounding, flights to and from Cork and Shannon would be re-routed to Dublin for the rest of the summer.

Shannon said the grounding of the 737 Max, which has also hit an Air Canada service, would mean a loss of more than 120,000 seats on aircraft this year and "as a result our overall passenger numbers will be down".

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Cork's Norwegian flights, to Providence, Rhode Island, are seasonal, while the airline said the reduced availability of aircraft had led to the removal of Shannon services this winter.

“Customers travelling to and from Cork and Shannon are being re-accommodated onto different aircraft types between Dublin, New York and Providence to ensure travel plans can continue with minimal disruption.”

Yesterday, top US Federal Aviation Administration, Ali Bahrami, predicted that the 737 Max could be back in the air in December.