Dusk2dawn, thank you so much for the link to the Ireland USA bilateral agreements 1945 & 1990. Reading the detail is very illuminating and provides much food for thought. Clearly, charters from Cork and Knock to America are exempt from the obstacle of having to stop at Shannon. As things stands this is the only way for Cork to ever hope for direct flights to America and my hope would be that we should aim for a series of "Scheduled charters" like Aer Lingus are doing between Dublin and Orlando, the only difference would be that a Cork bound flight will would not have to stopover at Shannon unlike the eastbound EI flight from Orlando.