The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, has said the contentious Shannon transatlantic stop-over will be phased out over a number of years, though traffic at the airport would not fall.
The issue of the stopover was the subject of intense negotiations on Friday between Department of Transport officials and Aer Rianta unions, who are opposed to the Minister's plans to break up the semi-State company.
"I want to be honest about the Shannon stopover. When you have 'open skies' negotiations between the EU and the US, everyone knows that 'open skies' means that change is needed in the Shannon stopover.
"Any change that comes about will have to be phased, it can't be done overnight. I will look to the new Shannon airport authority to work out the steps in that phasing," he declared.
However, pressure for a speedy end to the stopover has been reduced somewhat since it now appears certain that EU/US negotiations on an open-skies agreement will not end until well after the US 2004 presidential election.
Negotiations on Ireland's bilateral deal with the United States have "not commenced", he said. "There have been informal meetings between my officials and US officials to discuss EU issues generally.
"This issue was mentioned at those meetings. However, those discussions did not go so far as to consider any details of the US/Ireland bilateral," the Minister said, in written replies provided to The Irish Times.
Under the bilateral agreement, transatlantic flights must land in Shannon. Aer Lingus is allowed to fly to five US airports, Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington-Baltimore and Los Angeles.
The end to the Shannon stop-over would not be considered "unless Aer Lingus put their best foot forward and supply Shannon with an equal amount of business to what Shannon presently has," the Minister declared.
He said: "From my talks with Aer Lingus, I'm excited that they are going to be able to do something like that if not that close to it and I will try to push them a bit further."