Shannon is an interesting case because it crops up time and time again (often in FR's own communications) as an FR base that is struggling.
Irish passenger stats can be found here:
http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Dial...irings/&lang=1
The stats show that FR carried over 1.6M pax to and from SNN in 2007. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that FR have managed to reach this level of traffic at SNN at all, given that the airport doesn't exactly lie in a massively populated catchment area.
SNN-BVA carried 94K pax in 2006 (72% flown LF) and 99K pax in 2007 (74% flown LF). The route was well inside SNN's top 10 by LF. The best loads were on the routes to Poland, LGW, AGP and MJV. The worst were on some of the regional UK routes. Interestingly, SNN's overall average LF for 2007 appeared to be broadly in line with that of LPL and MAD and was better than PIK.
I find it difficult to imagine that Shannon has just a handful of routes that cause the entire base to be loss-making, however, I may be wrong.
Shannon currently has 33 FR routes (STN, CRL, BVA,PIK, LPL, EMA, GRO, NRN, BGY, LGW, BRS, NTE, AGP, MAN, WRO, MJV, BIQ, CCF, FAO, KRK, TSF, EDI, BHX, LTN, FUE, TFS, ALC, PMI, SXF, LCJ, KRK, KTW, TRN), 6 of which operate in Summer only.
Shannon also has a long list of dropped routes (10 so far: NYO, LBC, HHN, CIA, BOH, DUB, KUN, RIX, MAD and LBA). LTN and LCJ have already been dropped once and then re-started. So FR have launched 43 routes from SNN and binned 10, giving a 23% dumper rate, which is roughly double the FR average.
What would worry me if I were in FR's shoes is the question where any future growth can come from at SNN. It seems to me that there are very few obvious destinations that haven't already been tried: The UK is covered, except perhaps for the North East, which hasn't been a particularly happy hunting ground for FR so far, key destinations in the major European markets (Germany, Italy, France and Spain) have all been tried with varying levels of success, the one excursion to Scandinavia (NYO) didn't work, Poland is covered (and no longer appears to be a growth market).
Where is left? BUD and BTS might work, BHD might be worth a go, MLA might get some help from the Maltese authorities, the likes of PSA, MRS and REU might be ok in Summer, but now I'm really scratching my head ... Is this as good as it gets for Shannon or can FR somehow conjure up more routes to push their passenger numbers at the airport past the 2M per year mark?