A new passenger airline, SkyNet, to be established at Shannon Airport, will fly to European destinations in close co-operation with the Russian state airline, Aeroflot.
Mr Dick Healy, a former aviation consultant for Aer Rianta who is chief executive of SkyNet, said the flights from Shannon and Dublin would be on new routes.
They will also be able to avail of Aer Rianta's marketing support for new route start-ups.
Mr Healy added the airline would not be a low-cost carrier. "It will be a full-service carrier offering business and economic class," he said.
He declined to name the routes the airline would operate, but current European destinations for Aeroflot include Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Milan and Amsterdam, making these some of the likely options for SkyNet.
The airline has recruitment advertisements in the current edition of Flight International magazine. It has financial backing from American and Irish business-people, and has secured loans to lease two Boeing 737s by April.
"We are starting with two and adding two the following year. By 2005, we expect to have a fleet of 20 737s," Mr Healy said.
He added that the company had been set up prior to the events of September 11th but the decline in the aviation industry since then had made aircraft cheaper. "Crew are more available than they were six months ago."
Aeroflot would have no material interest in the company, which expects to have an Irish operating licence, but there would be "a close commercial relationship".
"We can write our tickets on their routes and we can both put our flight numbers on a particular route."
The other directors of SkyNet are Mr Carl Phorfziemer, a US citizen, and Mr Paul Williamson, a US-based Irish businessman.
Mr Healy has a strong association with the Shannon area and has worked for Aer Lingus and Shannon Development. He has also been employed by TWA and Northwest airlines as a manager at Dublin and Shannon airports.
He said up to 100 people, including crews and administrative staff, would be employed by the new airline in the Shannon industrial park next year.
Among the staff already employed are a number who worked for Virgin Express Ireland, a Shannon-based low-cost carrier which ceased operating last February.
A previous Shannon-based start-up - Mr PJ McGoldrick's charter airline, Translift, which changed its name to Transaer - went into liquidation last year.
Aeroflot, which expressed an interest in buying Virgin Express Ireland - in which entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson had a majority stake - has been seeking a relationship with an EU carrier to give it access to new routes under the European Union "Open Skies" agreement.
The airline recently hired consultants to improve its image. Its fleet of 140 planes include 14 Boeings and 11 Airbuses, and it currently flies from Moscow via Shannon to Cuba.
