Stormont welcomes move to Belfast

THE significance of the Aer Lingus decision to relocate to Belfast can be measured in the fact that Dermot Mannion became the first commercial boss to be afforded the opportunity to make a public statement from the new Stormont Assembly.

As he stood shoulder to shoulder with Ian Paisley on Tuesday in the strong Belfast sunshine, the national airline's chief executive confirmed economic gloom at Shannon as he announced his airline's new flying hub on this island.

Estimated at a £150m (€222m) boost for the North's economy, it's not difficult to see why the national carrier's decision to establish a significant base in Belfast has been greeted with such glee in the corridors of power in Belfast.

One hundred pilot and cabin crew jobs will come with Aer Lingus when it begins operations in December with hundreds more jobs in the pipeline.

Most of the Unionist politicians who have chewed the fat with the airline's executives over their decision to abandon Shannon for Belfast are reticent about relaying directly what they have gleaned from those conversations, but the general consensus is that Aer Lingus simply wanted out of the west to exploit the much more propitious Belfast location.

It's suggested that half BMI's £30m (€44m) profit last year came from its Belfast- London route based at Belfast City Airport, a service which hasn't been available from the city's International Airport since 2003.

And with a 9pm restriction applying to the only other London flights to Belfast City Airport because of residents' objections, Aer Lingus could soon eat into that reported profit with many commuters availing of the later Belfast departures from London.

The joyous welcome by the Democratic Unionist Party for the airline's decamp to Belfast wouldn't have been envisaged 12 months ago by the Doc's supporters and it is pointed out at the Assembly that the decision by the DUP Speaker William Hay to relax the ban on commercial announcements at the new Parliament is a sole exemption.

Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP MP most associated with the Aer Lingus arrival, chides those who would suggest that Belfast shouldn't benefit from the commercial implications.

"Some people who have been chirping for an all-Ireland economy have been decrying the decision of Aer Lingus to come to Belfast and have been saying that this investment should be placed in another part of the island well away from here. That irony will not be lost on Unionists", he said yesterday.

One Stormont minister who didn't want to be identified repeated the assessment given by others about the airline's decision to abandon Shannon for Belfast.

"The feedback we have received is that Aer Lingus wanted to put Shannon behind them because it is a location they don't feel they can develop commercially, while Belfast International opens up vast opportunities in Europe and beyond to Asia with British Airways.

"The chat is that they're making 'a few quid', relatively speaking, from Shannon compared with what can be developed commercially from Belfast. It gives them a UK hub and from Belfast they can develop substantial, profitable routes. Shannon can't give them that and Belfast is too good a business opportunity to miss", the minister said.