SHANNON Airport is overstaffed but no specific job losses have yet been identified, a spokesman for Aer Rianta said yesterday. Mr Barry O'Shea, Shannon's general manager, has told staff that it is not acceptable that Cork Airport can service over one million passengers with 120 staff while Shannon is servicing 1.6 million passengers with about 650 staff.
"While the two airports are not directly comparable," Mr O'Shea is quoted in the current issue of Runway, the internal staff magazine, "this is clearly an area that will have to be examined if the airport's future is to be secured".
Yesterday, the Aer Rianta spokesman warned of two threats to Shannon. Aeroflot, the airport's second biggest customer, has reduced its commitment this year and will reduce it further in 1997. The reason is partly because Aeroflot is using more modern aircraft which do not need to refuel at Shannon, the spokesman said.
The other threat is the likely renegotiation of the bilateral aviation treaty between Ireland and the United States, whereby direct access for airlines to Dublin would no longer be made conditional on supplying an equivalent service to Shannon.
Mr Brendan Cunningham, SIPTU branch official at Shannon, told The Irish Times yesterday that the union was not aware at present of any plans to "downsize" at the airport. He agreed, however, that the ratio of staff to turnover was not in Shannon's favour compared to other airports.
Mr Cunningham said it was obvious there would be changes in the way Shannon Airport was run but he hoped these would be managed in the "less painful" way that another semi State body, the ESB, had brought about a reduction in its workforce.
Mr O'Shea said Shannon would report an increase of 12 per cent in passenger numbers this year - an all time record. However, he added, on a turnover in the region of £70 million, profits would he considerably short of £3 million, "an unacceptable return in business terms".
"It is a problem that must be dealt with as we enter the era of open skies in the aviation industry, EU regulations on competitiveness and the need to meet the £45.5 million bill for the new terminal development and other facilities, " he said.
Mr O'Shea anticipated a further problem in the pressure to reduce airport charges and competition from Knock and Kerry, "which are already securing business that was once Shannon's". But, he added there was no point in "whingeing" about the loss of business to other airports. "What we must do is to go out into the marketplace and win the business as we have done in the past."
Mr O'Shea has told Shannon staff, Runway reports, that the loss of duty free sales within the EU will cost the airport about £500,000 annually.
The Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, failed in November to get his colleagues on the Council of Finance Ministers to agree to set up an inquiry into the social and economic effects of abolishing duty free in 1999 for travellers inside the EU. Duty free sales in Ireland in 1996 were an estimated £100 million.
A further problem now affects Shannon, Cork and Dublin airports, which are under the management of Aer Rianta. In one of his last acts as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications Mr Michael Lowry received Government approval for the transfer of ownership of the airports from the State to Aer Rianta.
Aer Rianta has welcomed this move for which it has long lobbied as ending its "anachronistic" status as an agent of the Minister and becoming a conventional semi State body.
However, the company secretary of Aer Rianta, Mr Liam Flood, has told staff that under the new legislation, the Government will continue to be the shareholder in Aer Rianta which will continue to pay dividends to the Exchequer.
"When the legislation is in place, Aer Rianta will he fully liable for corporation profits tax and local authority rates and will have the same relationship with Government as all other semi State bodies, Mr Flood wrote in Runway.
