'WORLD Lingus' returns to Shannon Warport

Friday January 03, 2003 17:05

by Tim Hourigan - RefuelingPeace, Gluaiseacht, L4C, Green Party

Aer Lingus colours used again by military charter jet.

With the expected start of Operation "Get Iraqi Oil" only weeks away, Shannon is seeing plenty of military business. Not all of it as obvious as one might think. Recent arrivals Evergreen International have been through Shannon, in their pretty 747-200F (reg: N486EV) Evergreen have a $75million military cargo contract. Arrow, with a much smaller contract have been through too. And so have the old reliables WORLD Airways, and their passengers, the US ground troops.

I went up to the airport last night just before midnight and spotted a familiar sight.
A World Airways MD-11 in the Aer Lingus colours.
see this link for a picture taken in October 2002.

http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=20281

I assume that this is the same aircraft (N272WA) that I saw last night, otherwise WORLD have more than one aircraft going around in Irish disguise.

Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me because I could have snapped off a great shot.
Not only was this aircraft still in Aer Lingus colours, but the plane on it's right side was another WORLD Airways plane (in standard white)
and on the left we had a genuine Aer Lingus A320, so the WORLD LINGUS plane in the middle looked like the product of a "strange mechanical encounter".

(poor) humour aside, I'm very angry to see the colours of our national carrier used to camouflage US military activity.

I called Conor to get up with his camera, but by the time he pedalled up the plane had taxied out to the runway.

The green World jet took off at midnight heading 240, (into the wind) but then turned left to go east. (no prizes for guessing)

Conor and I headed up to get a look at the other World Airlines plane. from our position I couldn't get the reg, but the WORLD logos were visible.

We saw it at the terminal being refuelled and having some food loaded on.
We saw at least a hundred personnel reboarding the plane, most in civilian clothes, but some in desert cammo.

As I continued counting, the airport police suddenly noticed us standing in the middle of the car park with binoculars in hand.

We were politely asked to leave and the APO even volunteered his warrant card without fuss.
(we hadn't me this guy before and it was nice that at least one of them has good professional manner)
So we left, slowly... We didn't see how many troops in total got on the plane, but it was still boarding when we had walked quite a way down the road.

At 2am (now Friday 3rd) the white World jet took off down runway TWO-FOUR and, like its green companion made a big left turn.

We'll be doing more monitoring during the week, especially during the women's peace camp this weekend.

anyone in the area who'd like to help out, mail or call 086-3784780

Also, please write to Aer Lingus, Aer Rianta, the govt etc, expressing your feelings about US troops flying through Shannon, particularly in planes that look like Aer Lingus.