On Wednesday of this week (July 22nd) the Shannon Airport website showed four Ryanair planes as the only civilian passenger flights to and from the airport. There were probably a few cargo flights also and maybe a few chartered executive jets. All the rest were flights associated with the US military, including one US Air Force executive jet, number 01-0076. It later flew on to Presswick in Scotland and then to US air base in Ramstein in German.

There were at least four Omni Air US troops carriers.

• Omni Air N225AX arrived from El Paso via Washington at 7.53am and took off for the Middle East at 9.46am, refuelling in Bulgaria and last seen over Egypt.
• Omni Air N351AX arrived at Shannon from Norfolk Naval Station US at 11.33am and took off again for the Middle East via Bulgaria at 1.16pm.
• Omni Air N378AX also arrived from Norfolk Naval Station at 1.47pm and took off at 3.29pm, landing at Spangdahlem air base in Germany.
• Omni Air N819AX is due at Shannon at 8.42pm this evening also coming from Norfolk Naval Station in US.

At this stage it looks increasingly like Shannon Airport is being kept open mainly to serve the US military and its wars of aggression. It is now at best just a regional airport having lost most of its transatlantic flights to Dublin. Politicians have been promising support to Shannon Airport for decades, but in reality since most of our politicians are based it the eastern part of Ireland, they are quite happy to see Dublin Airport getting the preponderance of the Irish tourist traffic and associated jobs.

The result is that Shannon Airport is left with the damaging and odious US military traffic - and very little else.