In a career that has included stints in New York and Cameroon, Shannon-based Mr Tom McInerney (59) has managed to avoid Dublin. After celebrating 40 years with Aer Lingus, he has "no intention" of making the move now.
"It would take an awful lot to entice you away from here. Despite everything, Shannon is a great place to work," he notes.
Two weeks ago he had a quiet celebratory dinner in Gooser's in Killaloe, one of his favourite places. He is embedded in the history of the Co Clare airport and hates the knockers. "Too many people talk down Shannon. I am sick of people knocking Shannon, I am sick to death of it. I let no one talk this place down."
When he started out, Shannon was a mere 17-year-old airstrip and Aer Lingus was 25 years old. He had never before seen a plane on the ground. It has been a career that has encompassed rapid change. In 1961, the jet era was beginning, and the airline had acquired its first three jets. Emigrants were now taking the plane instead of the boat. He remembers Irish being spoken among families from Connemara who had travelled to the airport to say goodbye to loved ones.
"Some of the scenes were harrowing. . . young boys and girls. . . I suppose a lot of them never came back.
"I have enjoyed every single day of it and I am fortunate to be able to say that I still look forward to going to work every day."
From Knocklong, in Co Limerick, he is a passionate hurling fan. He played for his county at minor and intermediate level, and is now involved in GAA administration. He has a family of four, and one of his two sons has followed him into the airline business, working with Royal Jordanian. That airline fell victim to the "wee wees" remark made by Ryanair chief executive Mr Michael O'Leary, but it has potential to develop traffic to the Middle East and beyond.
"They were hurt over it and rightly so. I can understand them being hurt. I would say Royal Jordanian, between landing fees, hotel bookings, transport, handling charges and catering, are leaving close on £15 million [€19 million] here."
He started his career with CIE in Cork but was still in his teens when he joined the national airline as a junior traffic clerk. He has worked "in just about every section" - ground operations, customer service, station manager, personnel manager and, in 1994, general manager with responsibility for transatlantic operations, a year after the Cahill Plan marked the end of the compulsory stopover whereby every transatlantic flight to and from Dublin had to land at Shannon. "Then I retired for the first time, as the fellow said. In 1998, I came back on contract to look after corporate affairs."
As general manager, he did stints in New York. As station manager, he promoted the airport in Russia and eastern Europe. Before that, he was sent to Cameroon to help establish that country's national airline using a leased Aer Lingus plane.
Over the past decade, he has seen the airport prosper, vindicating his view that the stopover had to go to allow the airline the freedom to grow. It was a deeply divisive issue in Co Clare, where the airport is regarded as communal property. It has come a long way in the past 10 years, when the few hotels in the region closed for the winter, fresh waves of emigration provided the business at the airport and the major banks had withdrawn uncommitted lines of credit to Aer Lingus.
"Cahill has to get a lot of credit for bringing the airline around. And the other person I have great time for is Brian Cowen, the then minister for public enterprise. There was huge opposition to the change. The opposition here was fear of the unknown."
The airport has bounded back "despite all the prophets of gloom and doom". Aer Lingus now employs 850 people in Shannon, nearly triple the number employed there in 1993, and the airline will open a new hangar later this year for maintenance of the transatlantic fleet. "It is the best I have ever seen it."
Mr McInerney is also behind the privatisation of the company. "We need the funding for fleet replacement. It is absolutely essential that it takes place. I think it will."
He is bemused by the proliferation of airports outside of Dublin. Between Waterford and Derry, there are eight, with planning permission granted for a ninth in Clifden last week. These serve one-third of the population with Dublin Airport serving the other two-thirds. "I am not saying there is not a place for regional airports. But it is the number of regional airports and the scale of regionals that we have. Shannon should be the gateway to the west of Ireland."
Having long relied on the immediate "jewels in the crown" of Bunratty and Knappogue castles, he believes the region needs something new, suggesting USstyle theme park and shopping mall. Aer Lingus, meanwhile, is not faring so well. Having had more than its share of industrial relations problems in the past year and convulsed at senior management level with a sexual harassment case, it is expected to make a profit this year closer to £15 million rather than the projected £50 million.
"We will still be in the black," Mr McInerney says. "That is the difference between now and the early 1990s. Since then, we have done very well. I just see this as a temporary hitch and hopefully we will move on from that."
He cites the external factors as the downturn in the US economy and the foot-and-mouth scare.
"It just goes to show how vulnerable we are.
"Every company goes through difficult periods. We are going through one and we will come out of it. We have gone through worse than this and we have come out on top. There is tremendous commitment in Aer Lingus and, I think, bottom line, there is tremendous pride as well."
