IN THE middle of last month, an American Transair jet on a flight from Shannon to New York turned back with suspected engine trouble. There were 220 passengers on board.
Newspapers reported that they were accommodated overnight in four different local hotels. The following day, 160 of the passengers were taken to New York on Aer Lingus flight EI 107.
Two questions arise how were bedrooms found for 220 people at short notice in what is supposed to be the height of the season. And was Aer Lingus sending a half empty Airbus 330 to New York before it fortuitously acquired 160 passengers?
To answer the second question first, Aer Lingus said the day in question was a Friday and Friday "is a particularly light day for us out of Ireland". A spokesman added that the company was still on target for growth out of the US market in the range of 10 to 12 per cent.
As to the first, Mr John Madden, owner of the new Temple Gate budget hotel in Ennis, Co Clare, said he was not surprised that stranded passengers could be accommodated.
"It was exceptionally soft in July," according to Mr Madden. "In fact, July has been an extraordinarily soft month for the past three to four years. If I didn't have group [coach tour] business, I would have had very little walk in trade.
Mr Brian McEniff, who has five hotels in Donegal and Mayo, said the season began well but then dipped. He blamed a number of factors, beginning with the Canary Wharf bomb that marked the end of the IRA ceasefire. "The north west began to feel a draught then."
Tour operators who featured Northern Ireland in their programmes came under pressure from their customers to switch to the Republic as the summer long tension continued in the North.
That was all very well for Mr McEniff when the coach loads arrived on nights when he had plenty of space in hotels like the Great Northern in Bundoran. It was not so good, he said, when the operators looked for beds on nights when Mr McEniff hoped to fill his rooms with the higher yielding individual business. "But you have to accommodate the tour operators, who bring you business in the bad times."
Mr McEniff had sympathy for his colleagues in Northern Ireland. "I hate to see them suffering. Things were just beginning to come right for them." Mr McEniff said a prosperous tourist industry in the North was good for the whole island because Ireland could offer a broader and more varied product.
The strong pound was also creating problems. Mr McEniff said when the pound was trading at £1.01 or even £1.02 to sterling, many traders in Border counties would exchange at parity. Now, however, with the pound at £1.03 and even £1.04, this was no longer possible. The Northerners do not much like the change.
Mr McEniff singled out another negative factor affecting business the BSE controversy. Cattle farmers were in deep difficulty. "When the farmers are doing well, the hotels do well," he said.
Mr Brian McColgan, managing director of Abbey Tours, an incoming operator specialising in the continental market, said the first six months were good but July was "somewhat disappointing". The Italian market, which had shown such growth to Ireland, was disappointing "because the Italian economy appears to be in a more or less perpetual state of turmoil".
Still, Mr McColgan believes that growth from Europe this year will be about 10 per cent.
Mr Eamonn McKeon, chief executive of Great Southern Hotels, agreed that Italian business would be down a little but British business was very good (up an anticipated 12 per cent) as was US business (up 10 per cent).
Mr McKeon said there was no doubt the renewed tension in Northern Ireland had benefited hotels in the Republic. However, he added, the TWA crash in New York caused more angst in the US market because it made Americans nervous about travelling anywhere by air.
The loudest complaints he heard were coming from the B&Bs, according to Mr McKeon. "I think it's simply that there are too many of them. The road from Farranfore to Killarney is now practically a ribbon development of bed and breakfasts."
Ms Mary McGee, who represents 1,900 premises in the Town and Country Homes Association, said July "did not take off". She blamed the Canary Wharbomb and the subsequent tensions created at Garvaghy and other places.
She also said that there was some "scare mongering" last year that it would be difficult getting accommodation in Ireland in July, with the result that people avoided booking for that month. "There were plenty of beds available in July".
Mr Gerry O'Connor, managing director of the Blarney Park Hotel in Cork, said they were having a far better season than 1995, "partly, I am sorry to say, because of the situation in Northern Ireland." He believed some people who holidayed in the North last year "for the novelty factor" stayed in the South this year.
Bord Failte must now apply itself to addressing an unheard of problem a softness in the height of the season.