The Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce MidWest Group said today that it would be irresponsible to introduce an open skies policy at Shannon Airport without a cohesive strategy in place to protect what he called 'this most vital piece of infrastructure in the western region'.
Kieran McSweeney, Managing Director of Avocent, said that 40,000 jobs are directly affected by Shannon airport with another 80,000 indirectly affected by the airport.
'Conceding any change on the dual gateway policy in advance of an economic impact analysis and agreed regional strategy creates too much of a risk to industry and tourism in the entire western region and could seriously impact future foreign direct investment from the US,' he said.
Mr McSweeney said there had a been a serious decline in the level of service being offered from Shannon, and currently, the airport is not supporting the business need.
He said that reduced service by carriers and ill timed flight schedules means that companies based in the Mid West can not easily connect to the major business cities in Europe, including Dublin, and can not attract potential customers to their companies.
