The inaugural flight in Air France's new twice-daily service between Shannon and Paris departed at 9.39am this morning.
The route is seen by the business and tourism leaders in the west and mid-west regions as helping to restore some of the international connectivity lost by the end of Aer Lingus' Shannon-Heathrow service last month.
City Jet, a subsidiary of Air France based in Dublin, will operate the return flights twice a day Mondays through Fridays and once a day on Saturdays and Sundays.
It offers passengers links from the mid-west to 248 international destinations at Paris-Charles De Gaulle airport.
More than 60% of the passengers on this morning's flight, which was full, were connecting onward to Asia, the Middle East and the the US.
The 50-seat plane used today will be replaced with a larger capacity 100-seat City Jet aircraft in a month.
City Jet CEO Geoffrey O'Byrne White said this morning he was heartened with the support the new service was getting from the business community.
He said bookings so far showed that the majority of passengers were looking for onward international connections.
Martin Moroney Director of Shannon Airport said the new service represents a great leap forward in connectivity for Shannon customers, both inbound and outbound.
