Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This meeting was sought with Aer Lingus on the back of the shock announcement on 18 May when Aer Lingus announced the permanent closure of the Shannon cabin crew base that had been in operation for decades. This is a very traumatic time for the cabin crew and their families. They have endured a really troublesome time over the past 18 months since the pandemic arrived on our shores. We need answers. There has been very little feedback from Aer Lingus on Shannon, its commitment to Shannon and to the people who delivered a really good service for passengers, particularly travelling through Heathrow and North America into Europe. Any time there is a crisis in Aer Lingus, the first area it looks to is Shannon. At the start of the pandemic, the first move by Aer Lingus was to remove the Heathrow-Shannon route, yet it continued to operate a Cork-Heathrow route, a Dublin-Heathrow route and the Belfast routes. I note in Ms Embleton's opening statement to the committee on 2 June that Aer Lingus looks upon Ireland as an outlier in terms of the restrictions around Covid.

She might be right on that. Shannon is an outlier in Aer Lingus’s portfolio. Ms Embleton's charge is that the Shannon cabin crew base is inefficient. I take her back to 2013, when the 757 aircraft was introduced there. It was introduced as part of efficiencies back then and the cabin crew base complied 100% with that and ran a really good service, returning really good profits for Aer Lingus. I take her back to 2019, when the A321neo aeroplanes were introduced. They operate much more efficiently from Shannon because the aircraft are much more fuel efficient from the long runway in Shannon when compared to Dublin. I would like Ms Embleton to back up her charge that the cabin crew base in Shannon is inefficient, because that is her charge. Really and truly, could she not admit that the only reason Aer Lingus is targeting Shannon is because of the loyal service the base has delivered and because these people have been working there for between 20 and 34 years? That is my first question to Ms Embleton.