It's of little consolation to him now, but ex-Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion must be smiling wryly at Friday's decision by CityJet to abandon its Shannon-Paris route. CityJet opened the route after Mannion scrapped the Shannon to Heathrow route, depriving businesses and passengers in the west of access to direct international connectivity.

Mannion was savaged by an assortment of TDs, lobby groups, Ryanair, government ministers and even archbishops over the decision. However, Aer Lingus made the simple point that the route was not commercial and an alternative out of Belfast would deliver higher yields.

Mannion was excoriated in subsequent weeks when CityJet came to the rescue of the Shannon lobbyists by setting up a route between Shannon and Paris, thereby still allowing businesses and passengers in the west to have access to an international hub.

CityJet, of course, didn't plan for a crippling plunge in revenues on the back of the global downturn and it has now decided to pull of out of Shannon too. However, unlike Aer Lingus, which was effectively accused of national and regional sabotage, the lobbyists for Shannon have reacted in a rather sanguine manner to CityJet's decision.

"We accept their need to cut loss-making routes, which they are doing across their network,'' said a forgiving statement from Shannon airport. Apparently it's logical, defensible – even moral – for foreign airlines like Air France-KLM to prune out loss-making routes, but it's inappropriate for domestic carriers like Aer Lingus, which has a mainly Irish shareholder base. Figure that.