The alarm bells are again ringing at Shannon Airport. Aer Lingus says it must have strategic partners to survive.

One of the partners must be a major American carrier. But the American authorities will not countenance a partnership with a country which does not have an open skies policy in aviation. And a country which obliges airlines to serve a Co Clare airport all year round does not have an open skies policy.

This is the crux of Mary O'Rourke's problem as she attempts to resolve the dilemma between Aer Lingus's commercial survival and the need to keep three Fianna Fail seats in Clare secure. The Minister for Public Enterprise does not need reminding that the two Clare TDs, Sile de Valera and Tony Killeen, resigned the Fianna Fail whip in 1993 when the then Government first relaxed the compulsory Shannon stop for transatlantic flights, allowing direct flights to US cities from Dublin provided Shannon was served with equal frequency.

"We are getting an action replay of what happened three years ago when Shannon was left out in the cold in the Aer Lingus survival plan," says Mr Killeen, "until the local Fianna Fail organisation dug its heels in and won the concessions which have maintained a daily New York service from Shannon".

Another Clare TD - Sile de Valera - is now in the Cabinet as Minister for the Arts. She wrote to her colleague Mary O'Rourke last January requesting information on the open skies issue.

Ms O'Rourke replied on April 21st. "I have made it clear [as recently as last week to the MidWest Committee of IBEC] that the Shannon Stop requirement continues to be Government policy. I have also resisted, along with most other Transport Ministers, moves by the European Commission at recent Transport Council towards an EU/US `open skies' policy."

But last week's report from Aer Lingus to Ms O'Rourke pointed out that the US now has open skies agreements with 14 European countries and a further 18 countries worldwide. The only major European countries without an open skies agreement with the US are Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Britain, "with the latter two nations expected to conclude agreements to support alliances involving their major airlines".

The Aer Lingus document says, diplomatically, that the separate development of two Irish gateways at Dublin and Shannon is both a profitable strategy and a major contribution to achieving the Government's objective of balanced regional development.

But, it adds, "the capacity to further develop this strategy is close to having peaked, as although both markets are growing strongly, the greater population mass and access to feed traffic in Dublin generates a stronger rate of growth than it is possible to achieve at Shannon".

Aer Lingus stresses that it is committed to serving Shannon but believes it is now appropriate for the Government to consider a further change in the Ireland-US bilateral aviation agreement "to facilitate the separate rates of growth possible at Dublin and Shannon".

Aer Lingus spokesmen are anxious to make the point that "we are not anti-Shannon". That is not how Shannon sees it.

Shannon is facing a number of problems which feeds its paranoia further. Aeroflot flights are now running at two a week; Aeroflot was once Shannon's second biggest customer after Aer Lingus. Shannon had a bustling charter business from Continental Europe in the summer. That has been hit by the decline in the numbers of Germans and French sampling the Irish tourist product, particularly Shannon cruising.

Any lessening of Aer Lingus's commitment to Shannon would damage the airport and the very considerable infrastructure it supports in the Mid-West. Yet Aer Lingus argues that its desired - and essential - alliance is impossible if the Americans are forced to serve Shannon at times when they would rather not. The alliance cannot come into being without the US government granting antitrust immunity - a guarantee that a coming together of two competitors will not damage the consumer interest. Such immunity will not be forthcoming, says Aer Lingus, without open skies in Ireland.

"We are looking at Shannon becoming a small regional airport," says a spokesman for SIGNAL, the lobby group which represents workers at the airport. Ms O'Rourke met them last week and said the Government's commitment to Shannon is total. But if it is, what happens to Aer Lingus?