“When you feel the dream is over, Feel the World is on your shoulders, and you've lost the strength to carry on. Even though the walls may crumble, And you find you always stumble through, Remember never to surrender to the dark. Cos if you turn another page, You will see that's not the way..”

Over the years, due primarily to the constant lack of attention from successive Governments intent on focussing economic supports away from it, this pivotal Mid-West hub survives through struggle after struggle. But that’s not how it should be. Is it? Commercial decisions such as the Aer Lingus cancellation of flights to/from Heathrow in January 2008 should not affect the fortunes of Shannon Airport and employment in the area, but they of course do, simply because too much reliance has been put onto that single carrier. This is akin to the ‘too many eggs in one basket’ syndrome and the fault lies in the lack of strategic decision making over the years by both Government and local management, leading to an unprofitable airport with a poor level of service and high reliance on individual carriers. It is widely acknowledged that proper Government supports, better and more focused management, a core Public-Private consortium (partnership), less red tape and commercial flair in marketing and negotiating contracts would have inevitably led to a more secure and stable airport that would be less reliant on the whims of individual carriers. However, what many people might miss about all this is that the Government had committed to preserving the Shannon-Heathrow slots and indeed, this was a pre-condition written into the Government Prospectus for Privatisation – another broken promise.

The outspoken Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary stated last week that “closing the Shannon-Heathrow route demonstrated that the Minister for Transport and the Irish Government had lied in their public statements during the Ryanair takeover of Aer Lingus last October..”  Ryanair pointed to the then Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen’s statement (2 October 2006) in which he said: “Heathrow Airport, London serves a unique role in ensuring connectivity to/from Ireland.  This connectivity is fundamental both to provide connections to/from Dublin, as well as to/from the regions…” and “the Minister for Transport considers that four London-Heathrow slot pairs for services to/from Shannon would be critical to ensuring connectivity to these airports, because this is the minimum necessary to ensure a spread of flights throughout the day..”. Concluding with the statement: “On this basis, the Minister is unlikely to support a proposed disposal of any slot pair, such that there would be less than the existing London-Heathrow slot pairs that relate to services between London Heathrow and Cork or Shannon”. Now just think about this - all around the World, there are similar cases of key infrastructure hubs just like Shannon Airport, where an essential public service is being offered but it may not be viable to run it purely as a private stand-alone enterprise without Government subsidies for several economic reasons, all of which make sense. Governments in other Countries understand that if they do not provide subsidies for such key hubs, then there will be huge and detrimental consequences. Firstly, there is the obvious result of the service not being effectively delivered. Secondly, there are the resultant job losses and the associated knock-on effects to the local economy. Thirdly, inward investment to the area/region would be stifled as overseas businesses realise that they won’t have the transport links they need for their clients and suppliers to deal with them effectively. An example of this for Shannon is that two major employers, Element Six and Avocent, who employ 760 people between them have warned that the loss of the Shannon-Heathrow link will make business ‘very difficult’ for them.

The case against any form of Government partnership is that successive governments have a track record of failure to deliver on such matters and it is us the taxpayers who end up paying for these mistakes. The sad thing is that we have to trust our Government to use our hard-earned tax revenue they spend on our behalf to best effect, but as I have proven in previous articles, billions of Euro are squandered each year in Government failures, from Healthcare & Welfare to Transport & Infrastructure. So, the bottom line is that successful key infrastructure around the World often relies on Public/Private Partnerships (PPP’s) and I think this may be the key for Shannon Airport, but probably too late now. In real terms there are 10,000 people employed directly and indirectly in Shannon Region and an impact survey carried out by the employers group IBEC is expected to conclude that thousands of people in the region are facing the prospect of losing their jobs as a result of the decision by Aer Lingus. That may or may not pan out, but the truth is that it is damaging our competitiveness. Earlier this year, Joe Macri, the Microsoft CEO for Ireland said that ten years ago there were at least five things getting foreign investment into Ireland (cheap labour, education standards, EU access, etc). Now, it’s down to one thing - low corporation tax. I wonder if the Government will now proceed with the de-centralisation of the Dept of Foreign Affairs Overseas Development Department to Limerick. I suspect that they won’t go ahead because if they do, they will have to rely on Shannon Airport heavily for upto 80% of their visits that come in from London Heathrow. They will no doubt find that Dublin will continue to meet these needs even though their employees will find life 100% better in Limerick from direct quality of life issues. In terms of what happens next, the cheeky Mr O’Leary has offered to side with the Government and with their combined Shares it is indeed possible to thwart and reverse the Aer Lingus decision. However, despite Ministers being in open disagreement about the issue (e.g. Minister Willie O’Dea vs others), the Government is likely to abstain from the vote at the EGM forced by Ryanair and the 320,000+ passengers who flew to Shannon from Heathrow last year will be forced to make alternative arrangements. Personally, by some incredible twist of fate, I would welcome Mr O’Leary becoming the new CEO of Aer Lingus because despite everything, he has proven that he is focused on delivering what his customers want and delivering profits, something Aer Lingus and Ireland PLC seems unable to properly comprehend.

Jas Kalsi, BSc(Eng)Hons, MBA is a Management Consultant and former President of the Ennis Chamber of Commerce.