Ryanair and pre-clearance for the US.

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Murt10

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I couldn't see what all the fuss was about when I first heard about this deal and why it is so significant, but apparently it will allow Ryanair, or some other low cost carrier, to fly directly from Shannon into any airport in the US that they want to.

Most of the smaller US airports are for domestic travel (i.e. N America) only and as they don't have customs and agriculture facilities, international flights cannot land there.

This deal will allow Ryanair to do what it does in Europe, fly into small airports, 50 - 100 miles away from the major city it is serving, where the charges are far less than in the major airports.

Given that the transatlantic routes are the most profitable for Aer lingus, this is going to be potentially very damaging for them.

I find it hard to have too much sympathy for Aer Lingus.

I'm one of those people who can remember back as far as 1980, when they had a monopoly/duopoly on the Dublin/London route with British Airways. They were then forever telling us that they couldn't possibly fly us over and back to the UK for less that £300 a go, and even then, you had to book the flights a long time in advance, and had a meal on your flight that lasted less than an hour.

This was at a time when £300 was about 4 - 5 weeks take home pay for many, and the high cost being charged on the route, ensured that many Irish emigrants, who were forced to leave Ireland because of the state of the economy, couldn't come home for Christmas etc.

The high cost of flights also meant that this country as a whole couldn't properly benefit from being in the EEC as we were far too expensive to get to, except for the most determined traveller.

Now I wonder just how far the cost of flights to the US can fall


Murt
 
Murt, I concur very much. But the new situation for Shannon will now entice other European airlines to touch down in Shannon in order to avail of this service. AFAIK British Airways have already made reservations in this respect. Perhaps Shannon/Dublin could become one gigantic hub for European airlines. And then try to flog those very people Duty Free;) as they boringly await getting fingerprinted.
 
Can Shannon take A380s? If not, they should certainly look at it. I can see airlines using it as their HUB to and from the US - European or Near Eastern flight to Shannon, pre-clear, then on to even mainline airports in the US, but going through domestic clearance.

Shannon has some advantages over other current European Hubs - not crowded, at the edge of European airspace (so the airspace isn't as crowded), but the pre-clearance could be a big deal in attracting transit traffic.

It's not like me to be cheery, but this is good news as long as Shannon can take advantage of it and as long as many other airports don't get the same facilities soon.
 
yoganmahew said:
It's not like me to be cheery, but this is good news as long as Shannon can take advantage of it and as long as many other airports don't get the same facilities soon.
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The Americans have no plans to extend this facility to anywhere else.
 
bond-007 said:
This will surely be the death knell for AL services to the US ex Dublin.
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It will make it tough. They'll still get traffic ex-Dublin and hinterlands. They'll probably still get a certain amount of through traffic originating from the US also, but it will put a lot of pressure on any transit European traffic they have.
 
yoganmahew said:
Can Shannon take A380s?
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The A380 has been to Shannon for testing in the past. They wanted to test her performance in high winds!

The airbridges are not equipped for it yet though but I would imagine that they are planning to put them in as soon as is practical
 
MrKeane said:
The A380 has been to Shannon for testing in the past. They wanted to test her performance in high winds!

The airbridges are not equipped for it yet though but I would imagine that they are planning to put them in as soon as is practical
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Ah, so, if someone asks, they'll have them done in about a year or so!

My enthusiasm wanes and my optimism evaporates...
 
Can't see too many smaller airports in the US offering a home for A380's, think the US government is hell bent on making things difficult for this plane as its gonna really impact on Boeing.
 
bond-007 said:
This will surely be the death knell for AL services to the US ex Dublin.
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Read in the papers at the weekend that Dublin is getting the same pre-clearance facilities about a year after Shannon - US has no plans to extend to other countries though.
 
Payback for the US being allowed to use Shannon for military movements, and other stuff involving Iraq and extraordinary rendition??

Interesting....... hmmmmmm.
 
Payback for the US being allowed to use Shannon for military movements, and other stuff involving Iraq and extraordinary rendition??

Interesting....... hmmmmmm.
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I think if any favors were going to be given surly they would be given to the UK who gave full support to the 'War on Terror' rather than Ireland who had a big problem letting a few flights land.
 
I don't think there was an underhanded or backhanded payback deal done here, I think it just came down to simple logistics. The main part of any US border for non-commercial traffic be it at an airport, seaport or land crossing is the immigration side of things, which already gets done at Irish airports.

The main focus of the CBP at any US border is to check your immigration credentials and since Sep. 11th customs inspections have really taken a back seat to this whole fingerprint/photo charade. All the US needed to open up customs at Irish airports was more space for inspections, offices and scanning equipment and more manpower, thats all really. Maybe the US has always wanted customs at Irish airports but were limited by the space they had. It would certainly make sense for them to keep the paperwork and border procedures all in the same place.

Shannon has plenty of space right now so it will open up customs next summer. Dublin will have more space in early 2010 with the opening of Terminal 2, as announced US customs will open in Dublin in 2010. Now I doubt they would have opened up customs in Shannon without opening it up in Dublin, they were probably just waiting for a guarantee that work on Terminal 2 would be completed as scheduled. Its all quite simple really ;)
 
rory22 said:
I think if any favors were going to be given surly they would be given to the UK who gave full support to the 'War on Terror' rather than Ireland who had a big problem letting a few flights land.
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Ireland is the only country outside north American with emigration pre-clearance to the US. Adding customs is just a logical extension of this arrangement. As this arrangement isnt in place anywhere else in Europe, then I doubt anywhere else will get customs.

Probably two reasons why Ireland has this:

(i) originally all transatlantic flights went through Ireland (days of the flying boats),

(ii) Ireland is a small country with a favourable reputation in the US and thus gets special treatment. Giving it to bigger countries would also mean the US would have to post significant numbers of staff overseas.
 
I do not think that Shannon is going to become a major hub because of this. Why would a flight departing Paris/AMS/LHR etc want to touch down in Shannon, get all people off the plane, unload all bags, clear immigaration and customs and then load up again?

The only reason BA have been involved is for their planned business class flights leaving London city. Because London city airport is too small, aircraft cannot depart with enough fuel to reach america, hence they plan on refueling at SNN.

The best opportunities may be for Shannon to develop as cargo hub or for Ryanair to start up US bound flights.
 
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