A sister company of World Airways, which announced this week it is moving its military technical stops from Shannon Airport to Leipzig in Germany, has said it shares "the same economic concerns" as the world's largest carrier of US military personnel.
Asked yesterday if it was considering a move from Shannon, a North American Airlines spokesman said: "Possibilities are being considered as a normal course of business. North American is a subsidiary of World Air Holdings, as World Airways is, but we operate them separately . . . North American Airlines have the same economic concerns as World Airways but there is no review in place at the moment."
If North American Airlines were to move, Shannon would lose as much as 75 per cent of its US military transit traffic business.
The decision of World Airways to pull out of Shannon was welcomed yesterday by Roger Cole, chairman of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (Pana), who said the decision was a victory for peace activists.