A public meeting organised by SIPTU at Shannon over growing concerns about the effect of an 'open skies' policy on the airport will take place at the airport tonight.
The meeting will also focus on Aer Lingus's long term commitment to Shannon.
Aer Lingus recently announced it was seeking 104 redundancies among its ground staff, as well as plans to transfer 45 of its 200 Shannon based cabin crew to Dublin.
Workers and union representatives believe this augurs badly for the company’s long term commitment to the airport, and is the beginning of a wind down so as to build up its staff resources for Dublin.
They also believe that an 'open skies' policy, in which US carriers would no longer have an obligation to fly into Shannon, would be disastrous for the airport because it would remove the cash-generating transatlantic business.
The 'open skies' experience in Europe has shown that 100% of the business goes into one gateway.
