*Pamela Brooks.
ENNIS native Pamela Brooks has been appointed as Chief Operating Officer of Weston Airport.
Pamela’s promotion sees her call time on a thirty five year career at Shannon Airport where she has held numerous roles, most recently as Head of Operations. In 2024, she was among 74 staff members at the Shannon Airport Group honoured for their combined 2,200 loyal years of service.
Her working career began in Shannon Airport when she took on a job in the restaurant during the summer of 1990 and within five years she was appointed the first female airport police officer at Shannon Airport. She hails from Steele’s Terrace in Ennis.
Other positions held by Pamela during her three plus decades at Shannon Airport include project manager, duty manager, procurement manager and business systems support
Her responsibilities included overseeing operational systems, project planning, procurement, and project management. She also played a key role in the separation project for Shannon Airport from the daa and worked with the daa on an airport operations management system project implementation.
She completed a BA in Management Practice at the University of Limerick in 2022. A year previous, she obtained a Diploma in Management from UL. Her educational background also includes a range of training courses in project management, first-line management, and airport operations from various institutions such as the Irish Management Institute and National College of Ireland. In 2020, she completed a QQI Level 6 Train the Trainer course at DCM Learning. Additionally, Pamela obtained the Professional Scrum Master™ I (PSM I) certification from Scrum.org in 2021.
Making the decision to leave Shannon Airport was “the hardest part”, Pamela told The Clare Echo. “Leaving Shannon was a huge wrench but I’ve moved into a really exciting opportunity, coming into it at the early stages and trying to bring it to the next level. It is the opportunity and potential which I see here and that is why I moved. The hardest thing is leaving the people not the job, it is amazing when you move on, you just get on with it and things evolve, change is good as they say”.
Located between Lucan in Co Dublin and Leixlip in Co Kildare, Weston Airport is situated in the capital. Its traffic is primarily private and commercial flight training plus business and executive travel. It is the only general aviation airport in the greater Dublin region, and is home to one of Ireland’s two approved training organisations for ab-initio professional pilot training.
Weston Airport was established in 1931 by Darby Kennedy, a founding father of aviation in Ireland. It incorporates 9,000m² of operations buildings, an air traffic control tower, three large aircraft hangars and has over 20 based aircraft. Weston also provides aeroplane storage, refuelling and aviation safety training.
Potential exists for further development, Pamela maintained. “I see great potential in developing the airport into Dublin’s executive jet airport. There is an opportunity to grow the business and develop the infrastructure”.
On the adjustment so far, she stated, “I’ve really enjoyed it, I thought it would be harder to be honest but once you decide you start looking forward. I stay up here during the week. It is a smaller scale team compared with Shannon but I’m involved in all aspects of managing the airport. I’ve things to learn because there’s new aspects here, we’ve our own directly employed air traffic control team, it is a whole new area for me to learn the understanding required”.
A spokesperson for The Shannon Airport Group said, “Having worked in Shannon for the past 35 years across a wide variety of roles, most recently as Head of Operations, Pamela Brooks was a highly regarded, and very experienced member of the team who will be missed by all her colleagues in The Shannon Airport Group.
We wish her every success in her new role as Chief Operating Officer at Weston Airport and look forward to welcoming her back through Shannon Airport whenever she travels”.
