Shannon Airport passenger numbers fall

Petula Martyn writing in the Limerick Leader has reported that Shannon Airport's passenger numbers dropped by 12 per cent in 2009.

She writes, there was a "decline in passenger numbers last year with almost 2.8 million passengers travelling through the airport, according to the annual report of the Dublin Airport Authority."

There was also a "dramatic decline in transatlantic traffic, which plummeted by 23 per cent to 442,000 passengers."

The news comes on the back of declining passenger numbers since the end of the so-called "Shannon Stopover" in 2008 where in an agreement with the US 50% of transatlantic flights had to originate or stop over in Shannon.