Shannon Airport passenger numbers triple to 1.5 million

SHANNON Airport tripled its passenger numbers to more than 1.5 million last year as travel recovered from Covid.

The 2022 number is 88 percent of the number the western gate recorded in 2019 before the pandemic.

Shannon Airport had no transatlantic passenger services for almost two years after the crisis broke. However, they resumed in March last year.

The group said nearly 240,000 passengers traveled on services between Shannon, JFK, Newark and Boston last year. It expects transatlantic passenger numbers to increase this year as a new daily seasonal service to Chicago begins.

Shannon carried 638,000 passengers on its UK services last year, more than triple from 2021.

Mary Considine, chief executive of Shannon Airport Group, said the airport’s prospects for 2023 “look good”. The airport will operate 35 routes this year. That is more than was available in 2019.

“Last year we secured four new connections to Barcelona/Girona, Marseille, Malta and one connection to Paris with new airline partner Vueling,” she said.

Six new destinations in 2023 are Naples, Liverpool, Porto and Beziers.

“These new services, combined with initiatives such as Ryanair’s €10m investment in its Shannon maintenance facility and the implementation of our property investment strategy at the Shannon campus, have solidified the upward trend of our recovery,” said Ms. Considine.

During the pandemic, Shannon Airport was included in the government’s regional airport program for the first time. This enabled the airport to carry out a number of safety-critical projects.

The airport has already introduced advanced passenger screening technology, which greatly speeds up security screening. It also means that the rule that passengers normally only carry liquid containers with a capacity of no more than 100ml is not required due to the new technology at the airport.

The group invested €21m on the Shannon campus in 2022 to provide real estate solutions to clients. During the year, work began on two new developments: an €8 million multipurpose industrial site and a €6 million R&D technology facility.

“We are committed to working with industry partners to create a more sustainable future and last year we signed a MoU with ESB to explore the development of a sustainable green hydrogen facility in Shannon,” noted Ms Considine.