Shannon Airport is one of the three main airports within Ireland along with Dublin and Cork Airports. The airport is a key hub for transport to and from the United States of America. Flights from the airport travel to a variety of destinations, with a variety of different providers form budget to luxury. Shannon Airport is the only airport in Europe with full customs and agriculture inspections for US travel, eliminating the need for transatlantic travellers to go through such security measures again upon arrival in the US. This makes it a very attractive airport for passengers travelling to the US to fly from. Resulting from the US clearance checks, a twice-daily British Airways flight takes business passengers from City Airport London to JFK in New York, stopping at Shannon Airport for extra fuel whilst passengers go through security checks, before carrying on to New York.

The main airlines and destinations operating at Shannon Airport are Aer Lingus, flying to Boston, Dublin, London-Heathrow and JFK, Air Mediterranee, flying to a very wide set of locations within France, from Paris to Marseille, and Iberworld, flying to Lanzarote and Mallorca. There is, of course, a very large service offered by Ryanair from here, with flights travelling to Edinburgh, Liverpool, London, Malaga, Nantes, Mallorca, Paris and Tenerife. Many other airlines operate to a few niche locations. It is important to note that these destinations are not available every day of the year; many are seasonal, especially regarding the warmer destinations which are mainly available in the warmer months of the year.