47% increase in US troops moving through Shannon.

swiped from an article by Gordon Deegan

as two more combat divisions are requested for Iraq and 25,000 troops in Iraq are told to stay an extra 90 days, Shannon airports tills are ringing with blood money from Bush's war machine. Of course, there is no mention of the Iraqi dead and wounded, and any dead Americans fly home from Ramstein to Dover.
Shannon only handles the live troops.
Dead men don't buy duty free, I guess.

Figures just released show that 35,926 troops came through Shannon airport in the first three months of 2004.
16,797 of these came through on 161 flights in March alone.
This is a big increase on February, and represents about half the total (46.75%) for the 3 month period.

Last year there were 125,855 troops through Shannon, averaging 10,487 per month.

March has seen US Navy and Air Force jets at Shannon as well as a lot of troop flights.

The troops through Shannon represent about 5% of the passenger numbers. But the other 95% share in the dangers of terrorist attack or accident.

FF's response?
"Ah, sure 'tis nothing, and them soldier boys are keeping us all in jobs by buying duty free and eating our bread rolls."