February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Figures released by Aer Rianta, the Irish airports management body, show that the number of U.S. military personnel passing through the County Clare airport has been rising sharply in recent weeks.
Most of them are flying to or from the Middle East, with Kuwait and Iraq the most prominent destinations or departure points.
There have been 16,697 military personnel on 161 flights passing through Shannon last month, the Aer Rianta figures show.
The 2004 monthly totals prior to March were fewer than half that number. For example, 7,922 uniformed men and women passed though Shannon in January. In all, 35,926 U.S. military personnel have gone though Shannon in the first three months of this year.
This is less than 10 percent below the same period last year when the U.S. military was building up for the invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Last year’s monthly average figure at Shannon was 10,487, so the total for last month marked a significant increase over that average.
A total of 125,855 U.S. military personnel landed at Shannon last year. They came and went on over 1,500 flights that earned over