Shannon Airport set for good year after exceeding expectations in 2022

Shannon Airport’s strong recovery in 2022 exceeded expectations, according to Shanon Airport Group CEO, Mary Considine.

The Irish airport welcomed over 1.51 million passengers to the airport in 2022, a 300% increase on 2021 figures, and an 88% recovery of 2019 passenger levels.

“The accelerated pace of the rebound in air travel from Shannon has exceeded our expectations and shows the pent-up desire for international travel following the lifting of pandemic travel restrictions,” admitted Considine.

After an absence of almost two years, transatlantic services returned in March ’22 and saw a strong rebound of almost 240,000 passengers on services to New York (JFK), Boston and Newark. A further boost is expected from May ’23 when a new daily nonstop seasonal service to Chicago commences.

“The airport was included in the Regional Airports Programme for the first time during the Pandemic and allowed us to undertake critical safety and security projects,” said Considine.

“We are grateful to Government for including us in this programme. The work we did with these funds shows just how important it is for Shannon to remain in the programme as we rebuild in the aftermath of Covid.

“The introduction of our new, faster, airport security screening facility, continued to have a positive impact in 2022. The new system eliminates the 100ml only rule, halving the time spent going through security screening. We have seen an increase in people from all over the country using Shannon Airport, as they now realise how easy it is.”

Commenting on the year ahead, Considine noted: “Prospects at Shannon look bright for 2023 and this year we will operate 35 routes. Last year we secured four new services to Barcelona/Girona, Marseille, Malta, and a service to Paris with new airline partner, Vueling.

“We are delighted to be giving our customers more destinations to choose from, in fact we will have more routes this year than we did in 2019, with six brand new destinations. These six new services are to Naples, Beziers, Newcastle, Porto, Liverpool, while our transatlantic services will be enhanced with the with addition of Chicago.

“These new services, combined with initiatives like Ryanair’s €10 million investment in their maintenance facility at Shannon, and the delivery of our property investment strategy across the Shannon Campus, have cemented the upward trajectory of our recovery.”

In 2022, the Group invested over €21 million across the Shannon Campus to provide property solutions for its business customers. During the year, the sod was turned on two new developments on the campus, an €8 million multi-use industrial space spanning over 60,000sqft, and a €6 million R&D Technology Facility spanning over 40,000sqft.

In addition, the Group supported the delivery of Smart City infrastructure across the Shannon Campus by Future Mobility Campus Ireland (FMCI). It also completed the handover of a new building to FMCI for their full-scale development centre and test-bed for mobility technologies.