Also, in a surprise admission, Ryanair's deputy chief executive Michael Cawley has expressed concerns about the effect the withdrawal could have on its business at the airport.

Cawley said the transfer of the Heathrow route would diminish Shannon's reputation abroad, making it more difficult for Ryanair to expand at the airport in the future.

"We want Shannon to be on the map. We have the biggest stake in Shannon.

We carry up to 60% of total passengers. We want it to be a recognisable point on the map when we're trying to sell to continental Europe and Britain, " he said.

Cawley said that although Ryanair's planned additional flights to other London airports would cater for about two-thirds of the passengers affected by the Aer Lingus move, "it's extremely important for the west of Ireland to be connected to the rest of the world".

"We'll satisfy the pointto-point people, but the better result is if the Heathrow connectivity is maintained, " he said.

Meanwhile, the DAA has said that it is uncertain how much revenue and passenger traffic it would lose as a result of the withdrawal but it admitted that the airport is continuing to trade on a "marginal" basis.

"It does make it more difficult, " said a DAA spokesman. "The government policy is to separate the airports if possible but the State Airports Act says that we need to have business plans for each airport which shows that each has a sustainable future."

"There might be some impact on this if some of the 340,000 passengers carried on that route cannot be accommodated elsewhere by Shannon Airport."

While passenger traffic at the airport has been growing in recent years, it is understood that the airport still pays its main customer Ryanair 2 per passenger in marketing support while receiving only 50c in passenger charges per person.

However, while refusing to confirm these details, the spokesman said that it was incorrect to state that the airport was losing money on its Ryanair traffic. "You can take it that Ryanair passengers contribute positively to revenue at Shannon, " he said.

The president of the Shannon chamber of commerce Eoin Hoctor has said that his organisation also believed that Aer Lingus's withdrawal would reduce the chances of the airport becoming an independent entity, which would damage its longterm future.

"It would be better off as a stand alone airport with a lower cost base and the ability to market itself aggressively to airlines, " he said.

Hoctor said that he believed that the fact that decisions relating to Shannon were still being made in Dublin was already having a negative impact on the airport and that "it would be in a better position to retain business and attract new airlines" if it was independent.

AER LINGUS HEATHROW SLOTS UNSUITABLE FOR SHANNON

A SENIOR Aer Lingus executive has said that the two slots it has leased to other airlines at Heathrow are unsuitable for flights to Shannon, despite comments from the airline's chief executive Dermot Mannion indicating that they could be used to reintroduce services between the two airports in the future.

The airline's commercial director Enda Corneille told the Sunday Tribune that the slots only covered summer months and were at noon and 1.15pm, times when there is little demand for short-haul services.

"For a long-haul operation, they are ideal but they have little use for short-haul operations. We get a greater return leasing them than we would from using them, " he said.

Corneille said that despite the decision to close its Shannon-Heathrow route, the airline remained committed to maintaining its current Heathrow services from Dublin and Cork. He said that these routes were highly profitable, particularly compared with the Shannon route, which was only 25% as profitable as the Dublin one.

"The only way we would be expanding the new Belfast-Heathrow route is by using larger aircraft not transferring slots, " he said. KG