Ireland
Joe Buckley is the Founding Executive Director of the Irish Business & General Aviation Association (IBGAA). An aviation industry veteran, with over 40 years of extensive experience working for Shannon Airport – Joe has held several executive roles within airport operations and business development. Since the early 80s, Joe has been involved at a national and international level on a number of issues of strategic importance to Shannon Airport, having served as a Director on several Shannon Airport and Shannon Group boards. In 2007, Joe took on a new role with Shannon Airport and assumed responsibility for technical traffic development. He went on to successfully position Shannon as the No. 1 Airport on the North Atlantic for Business Jet technical stops. He also actively promoted the development of a Centre of Excellence for Business Aviation in Shannon. An early advocate of extending US preclearance to business aviation, Joe played a key role in the subsequent opening of the world’s first US preclearance facility in Shannon. The facility allows passengers on business jets to preclear US Immigration & Customs at Shannon and fly directly to more than 200 US airports. The pivotal part he played in developing preclearance for business aviation gained international recognition and he was the first Irish person to be named one of the ‘Top European Business Aviation Leaders for 2013’ by the prestigious Aviation Week magazine. Through his work with numerous US non-scheduled carriers, Joe generated new business and secured the use of Shannon for those carriers as their main European base for technical stops on the North Atlantic. He has collaborated with both political and commercial VIP’s to develop relationships of long-term business and strategic benefit to Shannon Airport, as well as serving as a representative for Shannon on several international aviation industry associations. These include the NBAA, NACA, and EBAA. He is also a member of the Council of European Business Aviation Associations and has served on the EBAA’s Advocacy Committee. In his role as Founding Executive Director of the IBGAA, he contributes expert advocacy support and promotes the growth of general aviation traffic at Irish airports, with the aim of facilitating FDI, tourism and technical traffic stops. As part of the IBGAA’s Executive Team he has worked to position Ireland as a great location for AOC’s and Business Jet registrations. The team also founded the IBGAA International Business Aviation Conference in 2022 which has now become one of Europe’s main Business Aviation events.
The role had specific responsibilities for developing Technical Transit traffic and Business Aviation traffic . A key part of the role was to develop relationships which would provide an overall business and strategic benefit for the Shannon Group
Responsible for the development of air freight services and logistic facilities and services at the Airport. The development of new tech transit business, especially corporate jet stops. Maximise the business development potential of full CBP pre-clearance at Shannon, IRELAND
Responsible for all airport terminal operations