Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994

Vol. 444 No. 5

Written Answers. - Aer Lingus' Strategy for the Future.

Donal Carey

Ceist:

116 Mr. Carey asked the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications the uptodate position with the Cahill plan, which was approved by Dáil Éireann, as it affected Shannon Airport; the numbers of Aer Lingus flight crews and cabin crews which are based in Shannon since 15 June 1994; and the figures for Aer Lingus commercial transit traffic at Shannon Airport and domestic terminal traffic between Shannon and Dublin for the months April and May 1993, and April and May 1994.

Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications (Mr. Cowen)

Aer Lingus' Strategy for the Future included a recommendation that the restriction on direct flights from Dublin to the USA be lifted and the necessary bilateral changes put in place to facilitate this change.

Following Government approval of the Strategy, bilateral talks were held in Washington in September and October, 1993 to bring about these changes and an amendment to the Ireland/US Air Transport Agreement was agreed on 27 October, 1993. Under the revised agreement, Irish and US carries who operate direct services to Dublin must operate a corresponding number of services to Shannon, i.e. each US and Irish airline may operate one non-stop flight to/from Dublin for each non-stop flight that airline operates to/from Shannon.

The amendment to the Ireland/US Air Transport Agreement and the Government approval of the new A330 fleet has enabled Aer Lingus to commence a daily, year round direct service from Shannon to New York from June, 1994. Aer Lingus has informed me that the numbers of crews based in Shannon since 15 June, 1944 are 15 pilots (including the Fleet Captain) and 62 cabin crew. Due to the heavy training programme of B747/A330 crew conversion and the significant amount of extra flying associated with the World Cup airlift, it will be some time before the full complement of the Shannon crew base is in place.

The figures requested by the Deputy are as follows:

	1994	1993
April	May	April	May
Transiting traffic on the New York service (i.e. Dublin-Shannon-New York and New York-Shannon-Dublin)	616	17	9,106	10,528
Transiting traffic on the Boston service (i.e. Dublin-Shannon-Boston and Boston-Shannon-Dublin)	2,988	4,531	2,430	4,387
Dublin-Shannon service (i.e. Dublin-Shannon and Shannon-Dublin)	6,181	8,096	7,345	9,795