Mr. Kevin Thompstone:

I would be happy to do that. The Shannon-Heathrow route is a scheduled service and we have three flights a day. Pre-Covid we were at about 40 flights a week. That Shannon-Heathrow connectivity connects Ireland to a global hub in London Heathrow. In my day-to-day commercial business I spend most of my time in countries around the world, be it in Africa, the Middle East Asia and Europe. I would fly to a client's location for one week or two weeks. Typically, I could be found at 5.30 p.m. on a Saturday evening catching that Shannon service into Heathrow and then I would take an overnight flight from Heathrow and arrive into southern Africa or the Middle East or Asia. What is interesting about doing this regularly is that I meet other business people, from not just the Shannon free zone but also from Galway, Limerick and other areas who are catching that very same flight. We will also usually meet in the connection centre at Heathrow going to all corners of the earth. Similarly, the route is a vital link for the tourism side. Transatlantic connection is very important but Heathrow is also a source for generating a significant amount of back haul traffic into Shannon Airport and the wider Wild Atlantic Way.

I will put this into perspective. Transatlantic Shannon Airport numbers in 2018 would have been the bones of 500,000 or 450,000 passengers on transatlantic services. Consider hotels such as Dromoland Castle in Clare. It would have had about 16,000 American bed nights up to 2018-2019 and 75% to 80% of those would have come through Shannon Airport. That business is gone. The same situation applies to many of the Irish Hotels Federation member companies that Elaina is representing today. A scheduled service like that and the connectivity it provides to a global market is absolutely vital for the hotel industry, the hospitality industry and the leisure sector. It is also vital for foreign direct investment and Irish owned businesses who are trading internationally. Such connectivity is a critical piece of economic infrastructure and is not available to us today.