The new direct services from Shannon, starting May 1st and using B757 aircraft, complement the airline's existing daily B767 Dublin-Chicago services. The latter will now operate direct once again as they did in summer 2006, and dropping their winter 2006 Shannon stop.
All AA flights from Ireland arrive midway through the same day, allowing for fast transfers onto its extensive US network, or urgent local deliveries.
American Airlines Cargo is represented in Ireland by the country's largest GSSA, IAM, whose MD Ian McCool says: '2007 has got off to a flying start for American Airlines Cargo in Ireland, with new traffic from new agents.
'The decision to maintain the Shannon service during winter 2006 paid off handsomely. Although capacity was reduced, the agents in the west still had a daily service throughout the last quarter peak period, without the need to truck to Dublin. Now that we have additional capacity once again, the loyalty we have built up will certainly help us to win a larger market share.'
Sixty percent of AA cargo from Ireland now flies on the airline's direct flights, although IAM continues to offer additional capacity using nightly express road feeders to the airline's London Heathrow, London Gatwick and Manchester gateways, from which AA operates a total of 129 flights per week to the USA.
American Airlines is the world's largest airline. American, American Eagle and the AmericanConnection' airlines serve 250 cities in over 40 countries with more than 4,000 daily flights. The combined network fleet numbers more than 1,000 aircraft.
IAM is Ireland's largest cargo GSSA company, representing 11 leading airlines and controlling 20% of the entire Irish export airfreight market. It forms the core of an expanding group which now includes cargo handling, air cargo road transportation and aviation training activities. IAM is the exclusive Irish member of EGSAC ' the consortium of independent cargo GSSA companies with 60 offices in over 30 countries.
