[quote]Flying west to go east ... hmm; not sure if anyone's going to like that[quote].
Why not? Flying east to go west works perfectly well for West of Ireland traffic to/from Chicago on Aer Lingus service routing SNN/DUB/ORD and v.v. (the "Dublin stopover"). This will also apply to traffic between even more transatlantic destinations soon.
It's also incorrect to say that the DAA has a veto on long haul routes ex Ireland- haven't they made available a 10,500' runway at Shannon which would particularly suit freighter services, given Shannon's central location between Ireland's main manufacturing clusters of Dublin, Cork, Galway/Mayo and the Limerick/Shannon region itself?