OVER 1.51 million passengers were welcomed to Shannon Airport in 2022 but it remains shy of its 2019 levels.
It represents a 300 percent increase on 2021 figures when international travel remained restricted and also an 88 percent recovery of 2019 levels.
European services recovered strongly in 2022 with over 532,000 passengers travelling through Shannon. This surpassed 2019 pre-pandemic levels by 7% and was a 225% increase on 2021. Shannon recorded over 638,000 passengers on its UK services in 2022, a 309% increase on the previous year.
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.
CEO of the Shannon Airport Group, Mary Considine said the recovery has exceeded expectations. “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”.
Shannon’s inclusion in the Regional Airports Programme for the first time during the pandemic “allowed us to undertake critical safety and security projects,” she outlined. “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”.
Considine added, “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”.
According to Ms Considine, the prospects for Shannon “look bright for 2023” with 35 routes to operate from the international airport. “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 60,000 sq ft, and a €6 million R&D Technology Facility spanning over 40,000 sq ft.
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.
