The announcement by Aer Lingus last week that it is to end flights from Shannon to Heathrow, London's major airport, has caused an outpouring of rage in the west of Ireland the like of which has not been seen here in a long time. Talk about turbulence!

For the government it's more like the Blitz, with accusations of treachery and threats of reprisals raining down on the heads of ministers.

Everyone in the west has joined in, from bishops to businessmen. Angry meetings over the past week have been packed out with chief executives of local companies, civic leaders, hotel and B&B owners, taxi drivers, airport workers and union officials, all of whom have pledged to fight the decision.

They are all predicting Armageddon for the west of Ireland if this is not reversed. They say it will be disastrous for industry and tourism in the region and will undermine the local economy. They say it is more of the Dublin anti-rural bias (the Pale mentality) which is unbalancing the country.

At about the same time that Aer Lingus announced the bad news for Shannon, it cleverly announced some great news for Belfast. Belfast would be a new base for Aer Lingus, the company said, and from there it would operate a new service to Heathrow.

What Aer Lingus seemed to be doing is switching some of its valuable landing slots at Heathrow to the new Belfast service. Like other major airlines, it has a limited number of slots at Heathrow, one of the world's busiest airports and most important international hubs, and it appears to be taking the slots it was using for the Shannon service and using them for Belfast instead.

This was clever because we're all supposed to be in favor of building up the northern economy. But it did nothing to reduce the anger at Shannon.

They said that Aer Lingus could have taken a slot or two from the Dublin and Cork routes and also taken back the two Heathrow slots they have leased to Continental Airlines and BMI. Instead of that they had axed the Shannon-Heathrow route altogether.

So why does it matter so much? Slots at Heathrow are of enormous value.

Everyone wants to fly there, because from Heathrow you can connect to flights all over the world. Which is why people at Shannon say they must have the link, for industry and for tourism.

Shannon, of course, has been a key part of the western economy for years. The origins of the airport go back to the early days it was nearer to America for the old flying boats.

A huge step forward came years later with the Shannon Free Industrial Zone beside the modern airport, using tax breaks to attract foreign companies. Today there are more than 100 companies employing nearly 7,000 people in the zone, and many of them are foreign companies for whom the connectivity through Heathrow is vital.

And then there is tourism. The airport has played an important role in getting visitors into the west, into the real Ireland instead of Dublin.

A stopover at Shannon used to be compulsory for all trans-Atlantic flights into and out of Ireland - it was government policy. That has now been relaxed somewhat and it is to go altogether from next March under the Open Skies Agreement.

Already the number of U.S. flights stopping at Shannon is way down, and it will fall much further under the new regime from next year. Which is another reason why the Heathrow link is seen as so vital.

Since Aer Lingus dropped the bombshell a week ago, several major hotels in the region have warned of the consequences. The world famous Dromoland Castle has announced that it is putting a ?25 million investment plan on hold. The famous Doonbeg golf resort in Co. Clare has shelved plans for a ?50 million development. And there are others who say they will cut back as well.

On the industrial side, several Shannon companies in the high tech sector warned last week that their executives and customers use the Heathrow connection all the time. Without it, one executive said, he will be cut off from easy access to other branches of his company around Europe.

They all warned of the long-term consequences for jobs in the region. A major new business park near Shannon which is due to open in 2009 and could employ another 5,000 people could also be affected, they said.

The sense of national outrage (well, in the west of Ireland anyway) that greeted the decision by Aer Lingus was extraordinary. Aer Lingus is "our" national airline, after all. How could it do such a thing?

The emotion involved showed that many people here still have not grasped the idea that Aer Lingus is no longer "our" national airline, not unless you're a shareholder that is. It's a year now since it was privatized, and the only people that the chief executive Dermot Mannion cares about these days is the shareholders.

Most of those shareholders want to see profits maximized, and Mannion reckons that Belfast is a better growth center for the future rather than Shannon. It's that simple. They can make more money out of the precious Heathrow slots by using them for a Belfast service instead of a Shannon service.

Why that should be is an interesting question, and you won't get many answers to it in Shannon. Part of the answer is that it's cheaper on the ground at Belfast airport. Wages are lower, costs are lower, charges are lower.

Shannon has been milking Aer Lingus, charging ?8.50 per passenger on the Heathrow service. They have offered to cut landing charges and the unions have offered more efficiency on the ground.

But it's too late now and anyway, it's not just about the money, it's about potential growth in the future. The fact is that passenger numbers on the Shannon-Heathrow service have been flat. It's still a profitable route, but not nearly as profitable as a Belfast-Heathrow service might be.

And Shannon's problems are likely to get worse rather than better once the Open Skies Agreement really starts to bite. Aer Lingus has said that they will be offering 400,000 seats across the Atlantic from Shannon in 2008. But after that, it's anyone's guess.

They have also told the politicians in Belfast that they might run a trans-Atlantic service out of Belfast in the future, and if that happens it is likely to be at least partly at Shannon's expense.

In spite of all the bluster and outrage of the past few days, the reality is that Shannon is on the slide. It's no mystery why. The nearest city is Limerick, smaller than Galway and smaller than Cork and even smaller than Tallaght, the suburb on the west side of Dublin.

Most tourists coming to Ireland want to visit Dublin at some stage, so why should they not fly there and tour the country from there? And the industrial base in the Zone around Shannon is not enough to justify a full scale international airport.

Then there's the question of what will happen when Shannon loses the revenue from all the transit flights carrying U.S. troops to and from Iraq. It's around a quarter of the airport's total revenue.

So the prospects for Shannon are tough whatever way you look at it. The loss of the Shannon-Heathrow link is only one part of that bigger story.

And it need not be the disaster that some of those in the west have been predicting. The fact is that Ryanair are now providing five flights a day to London from Shannon, to the smaller airports at Luton, Stansted and Gatwick. None of these is an international hub to compare with Heathrow, but they do have some onward flights to Europe and beyond.

Much of the outrage here over the past few days has been directed at the government, which held on to a 25% share in Aer Lingus when it was privatized a year ago. Part of the reason, we were told at the time, was to protect the valuable Heathrow slots, to stop Aer Lingus selling them off. The airline only had them in the first place because of Aer Lingus' history as a national carrier.

But although some groups in Shannon are threatening a legal challenge, it seems that Aer Lingus can't be stopped from moving around its Heathrow slots between Irish airports. So the government has been left in a position of apparent responsibility but little power.

"It's a commercial decision by the company, we can't interfere," is the line from the government. I'll bet they're sorry now they hung on to the 25%. They're getting all the political flak and there's nothing they can do about it. Maybe they should sell their shares before the row starts over the inevitable drastic reduction in trans-Atlantic flights through Shannon that is coming down the runway.

The pain for the local politicians is so severe that even the Fianna Fail ones are breaking ranks and bitterly criticizing not just the airline but the government as well. These critics even include the Minister for Defense Willie O'Dea (he's from Limerick), who got so worked up he likened the Aer Lingus boss Dermot Mannion to Cromwell (I would have thought Aer Lingus serving Belfast might merit him being compared with Patrick Sarsfield!). The involvement of the bishops in the region was equally over the top.

As for me, I have very little sympathy for Shannon. I remember too many bleary mornings flying home from the U.S. to find that we had landed not in Dublin but in Shannon, where we had to waste time before taking off again to fly home.

At that ungodly hour of the morning it was torture. And it was forced on us because the politicians then were afraid to stand up to the Shannon lobby.

It's time Shannon grew up and stood on its own feet. If the route to Heathrow really is as profitable as they say, some other airline will come in and run it. In the meantime, keep your seatbelts fastened.