Shannon Airport is one of the main airports in Ireland and especially for West of Ireland. It is conveniently located in Shannon, County Clare and approximately 15 miles north of Limerick city and 15 miles south of Ennis town. It is good to choose Shannon to start and end your journey if you plan to travel around the several major cities in mid-west of Ireland.
History
The story of Shannon airport is full of ups and downs. It could be valuable and worthless as well.
In the late 1930s, actually the flying boats, which are seaplanes that allow to land on the water, were widely used for transportation. However, with the development of technology, an airport and a runway were needed. Finally, in 1936, the government of Ireland decided to build Irelands first transatlantic airport. After 6 year, Shannon airport was born, which thus is the oldest airport in Ireland.
As the gateway between Europe and America, it became well-known very quickly and thus the number of international flights rose up incredibly. Shannon airport became the perfect and first choice for transit planes to stop and refuel because of the limit of flying range. Later, you can imagine that the advantage of Shannon airport turned to be unnecessary due to the introduction of the long range aircraft.
Nowadays, Shannon airport is only the third busiest in the republic of Ireland after Dublin, Belfast-International and Cork. When it comes to the Island of Ireland, it is still not the competitor to Belfast City Airport.
Controversy
Shannon airport saw a lot of military transportation actually. During the cold war, as Ireland is a neutral country, not a member of NATO, it had served the Soviet until 1990s. Besides, this airport also went through the first Gulf war.
Then, after the September 11 attack, Shannon airport has been used for military stopovers mainly for America. However, what happened later has hurt Shannons reputation a lot. When the US expanded its war to Iraq, the government of Ireland still allowed the US military to use Shannon airport which indirectly supported the Iraq war. According to a survey in 2007, 58% of Irish people refused to use Shannon airport because of this reason. Some protestors even try to damage American aircrafts landing in Shannon. Shannon airport becomes controversial until now.
Bitterness
In terms of the location and history, Shannon airport deserves to be the No.1 airport all over Ireland. However, nowadays it has to struggle to survive. The thing is its position is replaced by Dublin airport which has become a transportation and business hub with a 21 million passengers per year. As to Shannon, the number is 2.6 million.
However, just like its previous ups and downs, Shannon airport may rebound one day due to it unlimited growth potential.
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