Maybe you're right. It's just that 9,000 extra passenger movements would certainly be material to Shannon, particularly when it's the difference between having to admit to a slight fall in passengers, as against being able to shade over 1.4 million. That would be worth a cost of a few tens of thousands of euro, just for the spin. Ryanair might have cut a good deal for them, too, seeing as how it would help the softer image they want to cultivate.
I mean, Shannon would see, what, an average of 3,900 passengers a day? So this would be like getting another two days of passengers.
It would be great if some journo actually put the question to them. I'd say the reply would be comical.
He is probably right.
From looking at the CSO/CAA stats SNN handled 1,005,846 passengers up until November 2013.
The CSO haven't published there Oct-Dec 13 stats yet so the EU/USA stats are only included until September 13.
The CAA have there Oct/Nov stats published so I was able to get the stats for the UK.
The remaining 395K will include the EU/USA stats for the last three months of this year and also the UK Dec 13 stats.
Remember SNN, handled a lot of diversions from ORK/DUB as well during the end of Dec because the bad weather.
Aer Lingus also added extra flights from SNN-LHR before Xmas.