{"id":657,"date":"2018-11-23T12:48:03","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T12:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/?p=657\/"},"modified":"2018-11-23T12:48:03","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T12:48:03","slug":"shannon-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/shannon-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"Shannon Airport…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shannon<\/strong>Airport<\/strong>\u00a0is the third busiest airport in the Republic of Ireland . In 2005 more than 3.2 million passengers travelled through Shannon Airport . Shannon Airport \u00a0is situated in County Clare \u00a0in the mid-west of Ireland \u00a015 km from Limerick City . The airport is operated by the Dublin Airport Authority.<\/p>\n

Shannon Airport mostly handles transatlantic flights and flights to Britain .\u00a0 Shannon Airport and Dublin Airport \u00a0are the only two European airports with US Border preclearance\u00a0facilities. Foreign military use \u00a0of its facilities has been a cause of concern to Irish popular opinion.<\/p>\n

In the late 1930s, transatlantic air traffic was dominated by\u00a0flying boats\u00a0and the \u2018European Terminal\u2019 was at Foynes\u00a0on the south side of the Shannon Estuary. However, it was re ali sed that changing technology would require a runway\u00a0and airport.<\/p>\n

In 1936 the Irish Government\u00a0confirmed that it would develop a 760 acre site at Rineanna for the country\u2019s first transatlantic airport. The area where the Shannon Airport was to be built was extremely boggy so work wasn\u2019t easy. On October 8, 1936 work began on draining the land.<\/p>\n

By 1942 a serviceable airport had been established and that new airport was called Shannon Airport . By 1945\u00a0the existing runways at Shannon were extended to allow transatlantic flights to land. When WWII ended the airport was ready to be used by the many new post-war commercial airlines of Europe and North America .<\/p>\n

The number of international carriers rose sharply in succeeding years as Shannon Airport became well known as the gateway between Europe and the Americas as it was the most convenient and obvious stopping point before and after the trip across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

In\u00a01947 the Customs Free Airport Act established Shannon Airport as the world\u2019s first Duty Free \u00a0 Airport , where transit and embarking passengers were exempt from normal customs procedures. Shannon Airport became a model for other Duty Free facilities throughout the world. In the same year, Shannon Airport was finally completed.<\/p>\n

In 1958 Aer Lingus\u00a0finally began services to the United States \u00a0using Lockheed Constellations.<\/p>\n

The 1960s proved to be a tough decade for Shannon Airport . Transit traffic fell sharply as there was no longer the need for planes crossing the Atlantic to re-fuel at Shannon because they could now reach their European destinations non-stop with longer-range jets. While some airlines were ending their Shannon services Aer Lingus\u00a0expanded its transatlantic routes.<\/p>\n

In 1969 it was decided that a new enlarged terminal would have to be built. The invention of the Boeing\u00a0747\u00a0Jumbo Jet also meant that better facilities were needed.<\/p>\n

In 1974\u00a0a major increase in fuel prices had a dramatic effect on transit traffic. The 1980s saw a number of new airlines arrive at Shannon . In 2005 passenger numbers grew by 32%\u00a0 largely due to the addition of several new routes by Ryanair.<\/p>\n

Shannon Airport also has a history of foreign military use. A large part of its business is military stopovers, currently almost all American; however the airport was also frequently used by the Soviet military until the 1990\u2019s. There were some official restrictions, such as no weaponry being allowed and uniformed foreign soldiers remaining out of public areas. However they were rarely enforced, and uniformed U.S. soldiers are seen daily in the public areas of the airport. Shannon saw military transports throughout the Cold War\u00a0and during both Gulf Wars. Recently Shannon Airport has been the subject of protests, direct actions\u00a0and High Court actions over such usage.<\/p>\n

Shannon Airport is the end destination of the N19 National Route , which connects to the N18 Limerick-Galway route. Regular bus services connect the airport to Limerick , Ennis and Galway . Like all airports in Ireland , Shannon currently has no rail connection. However there are early discussions of a private \u20ac60m project to connect the airport to the Limerick-Ennis line, a distance of 10km.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ShannonAirport\u00a0is the third busiest airport in the Republic of Ireland . In 2005 more than 3.2 million passengers travelled through Shannon Airport . Shannon Airport \u00a0is situated in County Clare \u00a0in the mid-west of Ireland \u00a015 km from Limerick City…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airports-in-europe"],"_aioseop_title":"","_aioseop_description":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":658,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.international-airport.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}