Remaining Positive...
I think a few of these sporadic claims being made above should be addressed….
"Well Ryan SNN didn't make any money from the Santa Flights despite the profit"
We do not know this. What we do know, however, is that retail and ancillary revenue are important income streams for commercial airports….there is no reason to believe that these "Santa" passengers did not utilise the parking facilities, purchase food, drink, goods in the terminal etc. To claim that "no money was made" is merely a wild, baseless, assumption.
"Instead, I'm afraid, we're just going to see the same distorted account repeated in newspaper articles about Shannon"
IATA defines a passenger as "any person carried on an aircraft and carrying a ticket". As far as the passenger numbers are concerned, there is absolutely nothing distorted. To claim otherwise is simply incorrect, as per IATA's own definition.
"Where did they fly to?"
They flew to Shannon, and have rightly been included in the domestic figures.
"They're just merrily spinning that they've recorded their first increase in passenger numbers for years."
And I should hope so. I would be considerably more concerned if, having recorded an increase in total passengers numbers, the airport's management team were to simply rest on their laurels and say nothing.
"the plain fact that 4.500 people got on free flights that took off from SNN, flew around in a circle and landed again, and were counted as 9,000 passengers."
Again, those 9,000 passengers were just that: passengers. Some might say that this marketing stunt is proof that innovation and creativity are now core values driving business decisions at SNN - and I commend them for this. All new companies should make every effort to generate positive publicity for themselves in the initial stages of development, and SNN has done this quite well.
I feel a little more positivity, and less resentment, is in order here?
Last edited by EI320; 15th Feb 2014 at 16:23.