Airports; how many state subsidised airports are required in Ireland

The population of the Republic of Ireland is now just over 4 million, on the last census data.

There are
State owned airports at
Dublin – – c18m passengers a year throughput
Cork
Shannon

There are publicly supported airports at
Kerry
Sligo
Galway (Carnmore)
Waterford
Donegal
Knock
(Capital, marketing and sometimes PSO support)

The Republic also supports financially
City of Derry Airport, which is in Northern Ireland

Galway (Inverin) and the three fields on the Aran Islands have probably also had public funds.

I make that fourteen airports, with public money behind them, to a greater or lesser degree, for four million or so population. And the military airport at Baldonnel, of course is publicly funded.

Three other airports in Northern Ireland, have had passenger services of some interest to passengers south of the border. Two of them currently do so.

Heck, we do need lots more airports:D , Athlone, for example is simply miles from an airport.

a boyle agrees with thomond park that shannon is overstuffed with people doing non jobs. i would go one step further and say i would like to see it face bankcruptcy so that a competent company could take over.

regarding subsidised airports we need zero. they should all close, right away.

Regarding the country: one airport seems to serve the eastern side of the country rather well (a little too well many would argue.)

So the inescapable logic is that one airport on the western side of the country is needed. The strategic location for such an airport is undoubtedly shannon.

The hundreds of millions saved could be spent on radically improving the rail network and the bus network. What person would argue that shannon is a poor choice when with a high quality rail link it would shannon closer to galway and cork , than charles de gaulle is to paris , heathrow to london, and jfk is to new york.

Those disagreeing with me would probably be silenced if only shannon was renamed : Cork , Galway and Limerick International Airport.

@a boyle wrote:

a boyle agrees with thomond park that shannon is overstuffed with people doing non jobs. i would go one step further and say i would like to see it face bankcruptcy so that a competent company could take over.

regarding subsidised airports we need zero. they should all close, right away.

Regarding the country: one airport seems to serve the eastern side of the country rather well (a little too well many would argue.)

So the inescapable logic is that one airport on the western side of the country is needed. The strategic location for such an airport is undoubtedly shannon.

The hundreds of millions saved could be spent on radically improving the rail network and the bus network. What person would argue that shannon is a poor choice when with a high quality rail link it would shannon closer to galway and cork , than charles de gaulle is to paris , heathrow to london, and jfk is to new york.

Those disagreeing with me would probably be silenced if only shannon was renamed : Cork , Galway and Limerick International Airport.

That is so inane. Lord.

1 – Subsidising airports does not have to be a bad thing. Air transport is a vital element of all economic activity (just ask any multinational in the Cork or Shannon region) and forcing those who travel frequently to travel long distances to an airport will just make them move their operations to somewhere they don’t have to do that. The one caveat is that any and all subsidies should be evenly distributed and transparent.

2 – One airport can serve the east of the country because the a significant proportion of the population is concentrated in one relatively compact area (ie a million plus in one city). The obvious problems aside, the infrastructure is more developed in the East than the West of the country.

3 – Have you ever flown from Cork to Dublin? I doubt it judging from your comments. Ryanair and Aer Arann have significant capacity on the route, did you ever think to ask why? Substantial business traffic travels that route on day trips and wouldn’t be able to do it going to and from Shannon or any other airport. Current times allow a business person to have a 3 hour meeting in Dublin in the morning and be back in the office in Cork by 2.30 for the rest of the day. Believe me, that frys Dublin peoples brains. They think Cork is somewhere near Uganda, and without an airport is may as well be.

4 – Railways are a good way of connecting people to major transport hubs. BUT, they are not a magic bullet as not everyone gets or would get the train to an airport. Do you really expect someone from Dunmanway or Bantry to drive for an hour, leave the car and take a train for another hour? Ridiculous.

5 – “Hundreds of millions” would not be saved. Capital costs aside, state airports do not costs anything like that, and in fact generate and contribute to significant levels of economic activity. The “cost” of an airport, port, railway or any major piece of infrastructure is only one side of the equation.

@Angry Rebel wrote:

1 – Subsidising airports does not have to be a bad thing. Air transport is a vital element of all economic activity (just ask any multinational in the Cork or Shannon region) and forcing those who travel frequently to travel long distances to an airport will just make them move their operations to somewhere they don’t have to do that. The one caveat is that any and all subsidies should be evenly distributed and transparent.

2 – One airport can serve the east of the country because the a significant proportion of the population is concentrated in one relatively compact area (ie a million plus in one city). The obvious problems aside, the infrastructure is more developed in the East than the West of the country.

3 – Have you ever flown from Cork to Dublin? I doubt it judging from your comments. Ryanair and Aer Arann have significant capacity on the route, did you ever think to ask why? Substantial business traffic travels that route on day trips and wouldn’t be able to do it going to and from Shannon or any other airport. Current times allow a business person to have a 3 hour meeting in Dublin in the morning and be back in the office in Cork by 2.30 for the rest of the day. Believe me, that frys Dublin peoples brains. They think Cork is somewhere near Uganda, and without an airport is may as well be.

4 – Railways are a good way of connecting people to major transport hubs. BUT, they are not a magic bullet as not everyone gets or would get the train to an airport. Do you really expect someone from Dunmanway or Bantry to drive for an hour, leave the car and take a train for another hour? Ridiculous.

5 – “Hundreds of millions” would not be saved. Capital costs aside, state airports do not costs anything like that, and in fact generate and contribute to significant levels of economic activity. The “cost” of an airport, port, railway or any major piece of infrastructure is only one side of the equation.

this is ridiculous, this country is miniscule , the only reason people are actually considering intra state flying is because everything on the ground is fucking shite.

subsidizing things is just plain bad, and not always a productive way to do things. It should only be used as a last resort.

Had the dublin /cork rail line been upgraded , the point to point travel time would be a little over an hour.

On your point 4 yes i think you could get every one in the cork area to drive to the local train station . why not ?
build a long term car park in cork limerick and galway.
But even if you don’t agreee well if some decent roads were in plave then it would not matter.

finally dublin is not particularly concentrated at all with thousands littered up to drogheda down through wicklow and in to naas.

if all these local airstrip can make due without a trip to the money trough then that is wonderfull but they should not be part of the bigger plan

@a boyle wrote:

this is ridiculous, this country is miniscule , the only reason people are actually considering intra state flying is because everything on the ground is fucking shite.

Your right. Whatever about the likes of Cork-Dublin, the rest of the roads and rails are likely to stay shite, so why do you want to remove the only viable option for people?

@a boyle wrote:

subsidizing things is just plain bad, and not always a productive way to do things. It should only be used as a last resort.

Again you’re almost right, but not listening. Subsidies can be good but must be evenly distributed and transparent.

@a boyle wrote:

Had the dublin /cork rail line been upgraded , the point to point travel time would be a little over an hour.

It has been! But won’t be upgraded much more for the foreseeable future. IE have spent buckets of money on track and engines and still can’t/won’t break 2 hours.

@a boyle wrote:

On your point 4 yes i think you could get every one in the cork area to drive to the local train station . why not ?
build a long term car park in cork limerick and galway.
But even if you don’t agreee well if some decent roads were in plave then it would not matter.

People won’t drive from Bantry to Cork and get a train. Get a grip on yourself. What you’re saying is you want to encourage people to drive on crap roads into a congested urban area and get a train for another hour or more. Christ.

@a boyle wrote:

finally dublin is not particularly concentrated at all with thousands littered up to drogheda down through wicklow and in to naas.

Of course it’s concentrated. 😡 You have 1.6 million in maybe 1000 square miles of the Greater Metropolitan Dublin Area compared to the population of Connaught of 464,000 spread out across 17,700 square miles.

@a boyle wrote:

if all these local airstrip can make due without a trip to the money trough then that is wonderfull but they should not be part of the bigger plan

Again, almost right, but only if we lived in cloud cuckoo land (although you seem to). Sadly we don’t, and the economic activity that is generated and facilitated by all of those airports is usually (usually, not always) good value.

Would this comment also include your precious Shannon which receives the stopover (in effect a subsidy) , a multi-million euro marketing fund from Shannon Development (a subsidy), a terminal built and paid for by the former Aer Rianta (a subsidy)………..

Shannon will be finished as soon as the open skies policy and the U.S. troops stop landing there this month bumping up the numbers passing through.
Shannon is going to end up as a freight hub with a few flights for passengers to mainland Europe and not the transatlantic flights which will nostly move to Dublin and a limited transatlantic service from Cork.
Whatever you say the Cork Airport catchment area is expanding rapidly and the subsidies and tax free Shannon zones days are numbered.

@Spinal Tap wrote:

Shannon will be finished as soon as the open skies policy and the U.S. troops stop landing there this month bumping up the numbers passing through.
Shannon is going to end up as a freight hub with a few flights for passengers to mainland Europe and not the transatlantic flights which will nostly move to Dublin and a limited transatlantic service from Cork.
Whatever you say the Cork Airport catchment area is expanding rapidly and the subsidies and tax free Shannon zones days are numbered.

Shannon has now more continental routes than it ever has. Ryanair has keen interest in staying Shannon. Ryanair have announced it will be one of their European hubs. I’m not sure of the figures, but Shannon, was historically known, as dealing purely on transatlantic flights to and from America? Has this not changed? Today there are more European routes from Shannon than there is to America.
I’m not sure, why is almost everyone getting on a bandwagon that Shannon will flop when stopover will be terminated
Transatlantic traffic has being static or levelled off since foot and mouth, Terrorism and September 11 etc. Americans are not flying to Europe as much as they used too. The main reason why transatlantic numbers are still up is the US Military. When open skies policy is finally set in stone, it will not affect Shannon greatly in the long run. Shannon now relies heavily on Continental routes and UK routes, which are all booming.
Shannon is not doomed; it has just kicked off… It just goes to show that some people are trying to fuel nonsense.

I am not saying Cork should close either. My point is Shannon is very important. It’s still bigger, still taking in more flights and Numbers. IF cargo freight comes to Shannon, all the better. Cork is still in debt, we must not forget either.

A few flights? That is a stupid statement. Where were you last year, transatlantic flights didn’t really change much in figures? Continental did. How many Continental routes have opened up in Shannon in the last 12 months?

Mickeydocs: where are your figures for greater Cork growth rate of 12% that is not a very high figure, Limerick region grew that in the last census, not to mention Limerick city grew at 4% and Cork city has fallen pretty much every census in my time. On top of that, Limerick boundary is more complex than Cork. Anyway you Compare the figures to Greater Shannon, and the growth of Greater Cork. It will not be spectacular. Galway city has being growing at around 15% since the 90s

Let’s take it as an hours drive from Shannon Airport
an hours drive from Cork Airport
Population growth an hours from Shannon would obviously have one of the highest growths in Munster if not the entire Atlantic seaboard.

there is one final ace up shannon airports slieve. It is the only airport in the country which can accomodate the new a380 airplane. If the aircraft was to start a shuttle service between shannon and london no other airport on the east coast could compete on price .

It takes up to a decade to put in place a runway. were appropriate supportive infrastructure in place i could readily see shannon competing with dublin, certainly for the leisure market.

All the subsidies for each type of public transport (rail-bus-air) should be transparent so that we know what we’re paying for. It’s easy to know the amount for each passenger flight, but how much does it cost per passenger to operate Sligo-Dublin rail? Which bus routes are in profit? A mystery.

@dave123 wrote:

I’m not sure, why is almost everyone getting on a bandwagon that Shannon will flop when stopover will be terminated

1 – Because when the stopover ends it is likely that some airlines will reduce the number of transatlantic flights they operate. Continental “added” routes because that’s what they had to do in order to add routes in Dublin. That’s how the stopover works. For every route you add in Ireland, Shannon gets one too.
2 – Shannon has a growing European/UK passenger base, but virtually all of that is provided by Ryanair. The deal Ryanair screwed them into means Shannon actually pays Ryanair €1 for every passenger. That means instead of making money on passengers, they have to suck up a loss and then try and use retail, stopover and military traffic to balance the books. Not sustainable.

@dave123 wrote:

Mickeydocs: where are your figures for greater Cork growth rate of 12% that is not a very high figure, Limerick region grew that in the last census, not to mention Limerick city grew at 4% and Cork city has fallen pretty much every census in my time. On top of that, Limerick boundary is more complex than Cork.

Cork City has fallen because the boundary is totally arseways, just like Limericks. Look at the population growth of Cork County (which stupidly puts Douglas, Togher and Bantry into the same “bucket”) and your argument doesn’t hold water anymore.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

All the subsidies for each type of public transport (rail-bus-air) should be transparent so that we know what we’re paying for. It’s easy to know the amount for each passenger flight, but how much does it cost per passenger to operate Sligo-Dublin rail? Which bus routes are in profit? A mystery.

I agree, as I’ve said before. a boyle would have us abolish subsidies completely, but what bus and rail services would survive that? You’d have an absolute decimation of services nationally. The cost of rail and bus subsidies are massively greater than air subsidies and deserve more of your ire. [Pedantic point for a boyle re post at 3.39am, airports do not receive ongoing subsidies (and very little by way of capital investment either), it is the airline operating the route into that regional airport which receives the subsidy]

Everyone should really calm down, this whole concept is ridiculous and is simply fuelling regional fanaticism…Dave123 is obviously from Limerick and is prejudiced in favour of Shannon, likewise with AngryRebel and Cork, while aboyle is having a laugh and stirring things up nicely. Anyway, Cork airport is going nowhere, nor is Shannon once the stopover ends, to suggest so is unrealistic. No doubt it will have an impact, but Shannon is much more than just a stopover destination – as has been pointed out, it serves as Ryanair’s European hub, and is strategically located to serve the mid-western seaboard, as is Cork Airport in serving the southern region.

a boyle has never stirred things up , when bored at work, never.

he does serioursly believe that the transports subsidies in existance in ireland have been entirely counter productive.

He is convinced of this as a result of ryanir taking a completely cyclical industry which never made any money ,given the amount invested , and turning a consistent and growing profit , despite stringent safety requirements and the radical increases in fuel costs.

He believes that the current 250 million a year disbursement is flushed down the toilet. He believes that iarnrod eareann could both reduce fairs , create profit, and maintain the current level of salary for employees ,given a proper management , and a free hand to whip the workers at will.

as for dublin bus and bus earreann …

Lol… Cork has a boundary issue… Limerick is in worse situation with the boundary issue. if you want to start that… do.. I’m not arguing your point.’s about Cork. Though there is still plenty of land within it’s boundary to build too i’d imagine. However Limerick city hasn’t recieved got a B. Ext tsince 1950.

I didn’t point out Cork Arport should be closed. Though of course, I from Limerick and would favour Shannon etc naturally but the Cork opinion of Shannon being a piece of fresh air is hilarious,

The biggest population centre outside of Leinster in a few years will be the West coast, Clare, Galway, Limerick. The new N18 corridor (whch runs by Shannon airport) will add to the population boom along it.

I don’t think Shannon is a waste of time, nor do I think it should be closed. Both Shannon and Cork need strong airports, but it’s the idea of one serving both (either Cork or Shannon) that just does not bear up to any sort of robust examination. Re phatmans comment, I don’t think either airports are “going nowhere”, both airports have their markets and activity levels and just need to find them.

On boundaries, my point isn’t to argue who has the most complex or hindering boundary, simply that it is a huge part of the reason for Cork Citys decline in population at the expense of the county.

@a boyle wrote:

He believes that the current 250 million a year disbursement is flushed down the toilet. He believes that iarnrod eareann could both reduce fairs , create profit, and maintain the current level of salary for employees ,given a proper management , and a free hand to whip the workers at will.

Apart from the scary referencing to yourself in the 3rd person….that’s the best thing I’ve heard you say all week. The most galling thing is it’s public transport that needs such comprehensive reform yet the unions are so willing to cause huge disruption to the travelling public that the government just bends over….

@dave123 wrote:

The biggest population centre outside of Leinster in a few years will be the West coast, Clare, Galway, Limerick. The new N18 corridor (whch runs by Shannon airport) will add to the population boom along it.

Haha, why not extend that population centre down to Cork and up to Donegal while you’re at it, seems a bit random/convenient…I wouldn’t consider the Limerick/Clare/Galway as being a single population centre, more half the western seaboard. No offence 🙂

And Angry Rebel, you misinterprate me, by “going nowhere” I meant that the airports will be staying put, i.e. not closing down. Have another look at my post 😉

[Mickeydocs: where are your figures for greater Cork growth rate of 12% that is not a very high figure, Limerick region grew that in the last census, not to mention Limerick city grew at 4% and Cork city has fallen pretty much every census in my time. On top of that, Limerick boundary is more complex than Cork. Anyway you Compare the figures to Greater Shannon, and the growth of Greater Cork. It will not be spectacular. Galway city has being growing at around 15% since the 90s

How do you arrive at the assumption that the Limerick boundary is more complex than Cork, because part of the growth area is in another county? How does that differ?

There are now more people living in the county area of greater Cork than in Cork City. Greater Cork, or metropolitan Cork, reflects areas in County Cork that are served by Cork County Council. These areas include Rochestown, Douglas, parts of Bishopstown and Model Farm Road,

Check out this report: http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/2006PreliminaryReport.pdf
Page 10 states that Cork was the fastest growing region in Munster at 11.4%, followed by Waterford (9.2%).

The fastest growing area of the fastest growing region in Munster is East Cork. Most of the growth in the second fastest growing region in Munster is in West Waterford. So Cork and Waterford would seem to be growing just as quickly as the so called N18 axis. So why not compare the N18 region with the N25 region that contains towns such as Midleton, Youghal, Dungarvan, not to mind mentioning Cobh.

The population of Greater Cork alone, ie Cork City and her suburbs have an estimated population of 250,000, which is far in excess of the combined greater populations of Limerick, Galway, Shannon, and Ennis.

The Shannon area has been over subsidised for over half a century. Luckily Europe has stepped in forced our lethargic government to take action. Shannon without the Transatlantic flights will be much lesser of an airport.
Cork on the othe hand is growing organically, without the need to serve as a cheap flights hub.

Have a good long look at the census and realise that most areas in our country are expanding rapidly, of course the east coast far more quickly than any where else. Realise that Limerick in not unique, and that it is not going to replace Cork as the second population hub any time soon. There is no comparison in the populations. Greater Cork is more than twice the population of greater Limerick.

But of course you will probably argue that the census is wrong because most of Limerick were at a match. By the way, who were the players that scored most of the points in Cardiff and where were they from 🙂

@dave123 wrote:

The biggest population centre outside of Leinster in a few years will be the West coast, Clare, Galway, Limerick. The new N18 corridor (whch runs by Shannon airport) will add to the population boom along it.

I can’t see that happening. The total population of the whole of Connacht, Co Limerick and Co. Clare just about equals that of Co. Cork alone. I think dave123, to define a population centre, you would need high density populations, not a few hundred thousand spread across half of Ireland. Your comment is absolutely ridiculous and I think you would be laughed at if this thread was set in another country and not Ireland. So unless the vhest (west) of Ireland is going to attract half a million people within the next ten years, then I really can’t see it happening. You talk of a population boom along the N18, I doubt it will compare to that along the Cork Suburban Rail extensions to the east and north of the city, or with that of the Fermoy Motorway, or the North Ring Road. And not forgetting that the European Union still considers the Western Regions of Ireland as under-developed, under-populated and still in need of Objective One EU funding, on par with areas such as eastern Poland or Slovakia. The EU must still pay for items such as basic infrastructre in the west along with aiding socio-economic groups to stop outward migration to areas such as Dublin, Cork or abroad. Cork has a population of half a million, thats about half the population of Munster, and more than the population of Connacht, so deciding where the biggest population centre will be (after Dublin of course) should be a no brainer.

This document has a review of the subsidies to regional airports
http://www.transport.ie/upload/general/4803-0.pdf

including the amazing susbsidy of €560 per Knock-Dublin return trip.

Conclusion
For every €1 in fare paid by the passenger, the Exchequer pays (in round numbers) amounts
ranging from €1 up to €5 in subvention, depending on the route, with the largest subvention
currently applying on the Knock route. These are rates of per-passenger subvention far
higher than those available on other public transport modes. The total subvention to these air
services, which carried 260,000 passengers in 2002, is now close to the total subvention of
the entire Bus Éireann system, which carried approximately 46 million in the same year.
Expressway, the long-distance bus network which competes with rail and air on the main
inter-urban routes, carried 7.5 million passengers in 2002 without any subvention.

Costs and Benefits
We have been unable to locate any studies which establish, for the EASP as a whole or for
any individual route, that benefits exceed costs. Specifically, it is clear from the discussion in
Section 3 that time saved by users cannot contribute a substantial portion towards costs. The
benefits to tourism or to regional development have been stressed to us in interviews and
submissions. However no quantification of these benefits has been offered.

From the Irish Indo today. This lobby group want to blow 44m on a ‘promotional fund’ which involves what exactly? Posters all over Europe saying ‘Come To Shannon’. And what of the remaining 9m…not sure what that is for but we can be reasonably sure it will be blown on some other hair-brained scheme. SNN has a future, but its cost structure is out of whack given that a more competitive environment now exists. I for one feel that SNN could really make a go at being a great base for a low-cost transatlantic operator and/or the likes of FedEx/UPS/DHL, etc. Not a good sign however when the SNN lobby’s first reaction to the prospect of open skies is to go running back to the government with cap in hand asking for another bailout to keep everything sweet, for a few more years at least. If they focused their energies on actually making the airport competitive, then they would be much better off.

€53m plan to sustain ‘open skies’

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen was yesterday presented with a €53 million five-year action plan aimed at ensuring Shannon does not lose its transatlantic business following the ending of the Shannon stopover.

The controversial phased ending of the stop-over begins in November and in response to Ireland reaching agreement with the United States last year, Mr Cullen proposed the drawing up of a Tourism and Economic Plan to sustain Shannon’s transatlantic business in an “open skies” environment.

A full “open skies” commences in April 2008.

The Mid West Regional Authority’s plan seeks to achieve a tourism promotional fund of €44m from government funds, said Alec Fleming, chairman of the steering group which drew up the plan.

@corcaighboy wrote:

From the Irish Indo today. This lobby group want to blow 44m on a ‘promotional fund’ which involves what exactly? Posters all over Europe saying ‘Come To Shannon’. And what of the remaining 9m…not sure what that is for but we can be reasonably sure it will be blown on some other hair-brained scheme. SNN has a future, but its cost structure is out of whack given that a more competitive environment now exists. I for one feel that SNN could really make a go at being a great base for a low-cost transatlantic operator and/or the likes of FedEx/UPS/DHL, etc. Not a good sign however when the SNN lobby’s first reaction to the prospect of open skies is to go running back to the government with cap in hand asking for another bailout to keep everything sweet, for a few more years at least. If they focused their energies on actually making the airport competitive, then they would be much better off.

€53m plan to sustain ‘open skies’

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen was yesterday presented with a €53 million five-year action plan aimed at ensuring Shannon does not lose its transatlantic business following the ending of the Shannon stopover.

The controversial phased ending of the stop-over begins in November and in response to Ireland reaching agreement with the United States last year, Mr Cullen proposed the drawing up of a Tourism and Economic Plan to sustain Shannon’s transatlantic business in an “open skies” environment.

A full “open skies” commences in April 2008.

The Mid West Regional Authority’s plan seeks to achieve a tourism promotional fund of €44m from government funds, said Alec Fleming, chairman of the steering group which drew up the plan.

Good post and no matter how much money they wase on promotion Shannon will never be a destination in itself and a low cost transatlantic model may give it some hope and in a good idea however the vultures are slowly but surely gathering and further government subsidy is only putting off the inevitable.

@corcaighboy wrote:

From the Irish Indo today. This lobby group want to blow 44m on a ‘promotional fund’ which involves what exactly? Posters all over Europe saying ‘Come To Shannon’. And what of the remaining 9m…not sure what that is for but we can be reasonably sure it will be blown on some other hair-brained scheme. SNN has a future, but its cost structure is out of whack given that a more competitive environment now exists. I for one feel that SNN could really make a go at being a great base for a low-cost transatlantic operator and/or the likes of FedEx/UPS/DHL, etc. Not a good sign however when the SNN lobby’s first reaction to the prospect of open skies is to go running back to the government with cap in hand asking for another bailout to keep everything sweet, for a few more years at least. If they focused their energies on actually making the airport competitive, then they would be much better off.

€53m plan to sustain ‘open skies’

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen was yesterday presented with a €53 million five-year action plan aimed at ensuring Shannon does not lose its transatlantic business following the ending of the Shannon stopover.

The controversial phased ending of the stop-over begins in November and in response to Ireland reaching agreement with the United States last year, Mr Cullen proposed the drawing up of a Tourism and Economic Plan to sustain Shannon’s transatlantic business in an “open skies” environment.

A full “open skies” commences in April 2008.

The Mid West Regional Authority’s plan seeks to achieve a tourism promotional fund of €44m from government funds, said Alec Fleming, chairman of the steering group which drew up the plan.

Good post and no matter how much money they waste on promotion Shannon will never be a destination in itself and a low cost transatlantic model may give it some hope and in a good idea however the vultures are slowly but surely gathering and further government subsidy is only putting off the inevitable.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

This document has a review of the subsidies to regional airports
http://www.transport.ie/upload/general/4803-0.pdf

including the amazing susbsidy of €560 per Knock-Dublin return trip.

Again to be pedantic, but I believe it’s an important distinction, the subsidies are paid to the airline, not the airport. The airport gets the same amount per passenger as if it was a “normal” unsubsidised service. However, the airport does make money in two main ways which in effect drive the subsidy amounts:

1 – If there was no subsidy on the route, it would probably not exist (the report indicates only Kerry would be able to retain a somewhat scaled back route to Dublin without subsidies). Therefore, the airport is receiving passenger and handling charges from passengers who would not otherwise pass through
2 – Many of the subsidised routes operate early morning and late evening sectors to facilitate business travellers and connections (although the report indicates the importance of connections is exagerated). These timings are classified as “out of hours” times, for which the airport charges are vastly higher.

It does show where the subsidies get crazy though. €560 is difficult to justify on any grounds. A more reasonable subsidy could be justified on broader economic grounds such as time savings. The authors note this but add that as the average wages in Ireland are €10-15 per hour the direct user benefits of time can only account for a small portion of the subsidy amount. One flaw in this reasoning is that those who regularly fly for business purposes would have a significantly higher “wage per hour” rate and this would change the “value” of the time saved.

Common sense would suggest though that a 3/4 hour hop from Farranfore is infinitely more preferable to a 5hr 40min bus ride from Dublin to Tralee? What level of subvention, if any, for that route is a much more difficult one to decide on.

On the Shannon marketing fund….Cork must pay for the bulk of it’s terminal (while Shannon has one built for it) but when thing’s don’t go their way in Shannon, it’s out with the hand again!? €53m is a ridiculous sum of money for a desperate plan,

The total population of the whole of Connacht, Co Limerick and Co. Clare just about equals that of Co. Cork alone

Not quite. Connaught as a whole still exceeds the population of Cork, just about. The gap is closing, but not by all that much.

@mickeydocs wrote:

[Mickeydocs: where are your figures for greater Cork growth rate of 12% that is not a very high figure, Limerick region grew that in the last census, not to mention Limerick city grew at 4% and Cork city has fallen pretty much every census in my time. On top of that, Limerick boundary is more complex than Cork. Anyway you Compare the figures to Greater Shannon, and the growth of Greater Cork. It will not be spectacular. Galway city has being growing at around 15% since the 90s

How do you arrive at the assumption that the Limerick boundary is more complex than Cork, because part of the growth area is in another county? How does that differ?

There are now more people living in the county area of greater Cork than in Cork City. Greater Cork, or metropolitan Cork, reflects areas in County Cork that are served by Cork County Council. These areas include Rochestown, Douglas, parts of Bishopstown and Model Farm Road,

Check out this report: http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/2006PreliminaryReport.pdf
Page 10 states that Cork was the fastest growing region in Munster at 11.4%, followed by Waterford (9.2%).

The fastest growing area of the fastest growing region in Munster is East Cork. Most of the growth in the second fastest growing region in Munster is in West Waterford. So Cork and Waterford would seem to be growing just as quickly as the so called N18 axis. So why not compare the N18 region with the N25 region that contains towns such as Midleton, Youghal, Dungarvan, not to mind mentioning Cobh.

The population of Greater Cork alone, ie Cork City and her suburbs have an estimated population of 250,000, which is far in excess of the combined greater populations of Limerick, Galway, Shannon, and Ennis.

The Shannon area has been over subsidised for over half a century. Luckily Europe has stepped in forced our lethargic government to take action. Shannon without the Transatlantic flights will be much lesser of an airport.
Cork on the othe hand is growing organically, without the need to serve as a cheap flights hub.

Have a good long look at the census and realise that most areas in our country are expanding rapidly, of course the east coast far more quickly than any where else. Realise that Limerick in not unique, and that it is not going to replace Cork as the second population hub any time soon. There is no comparison in the populations. Greater Cork is more than twice the population of greater Limerick.

But of course you will probably argue that the census is wrong because most of Limerick were at a match. By the way, who were the players that scored most of the points in Cardiff and where were they from 🙂

ok…… Limwerick is more complex, because of high rates, no space in it’s existing boundary, and quite right;y as you said, it’s sprawling into three other counties. Cork does not have this problem. in fact some of Cork’s suburbs are still in it’s boundary.

You mention that Greater Cork… is over 250,000. You should have mentioned Hinterland. Limerick’s hinterland reaches 200,000. Now Galway, has a hinterland too probs not to far behind. But besides, Cork is not double the population or extraordinary….

There’s an element of EXAGGERATION:rolleyes:

@A-ha wrote:

I can’t see that happening. The total population of the whole of Connacht, Co Limerick and Co. Clare just about equals that of Co. Cork alone. I think dave123, to define a population centre, you would need high density populations, not a few hundred thousand spread across half of Ireland. Your comment is absolutely ridiculous and I think you would be laughed at if this thread was set in another country and not Ireland. So unless the vhest (west) of Ireland is going to attract half a million people within the next ten years, then I really can’t see it happening. You talk of a population boom along the N18, I doubt it will compare to that along the Cork Suburban Rail extensions to the east and north of the city, or with that of the Fermoy Motorway, or the North Ring Road. And not forgetting that the European Union still considers the Western Regions of Ireland as under-developed, under-populated and still in need of Objective One EU funding, on par with areas such as eastern Poland or Slovakia. The EU must still pay for items such as basic infrastructre in the west along with aiding socio-economic groups to stop outward migration to areas such as Dublin, Cork or abroad. Cork has a population of half a million, thats about half the population of Munster, and more than the population of Connacht, so deciding where the biggest population centre will be (after Dublin of course) should be a no brainer.

AHA… Half the state would be Munster and Connaght…. Please keep into context. I said the N18 Corridor. We all know Cork is the second city of Ireland, and has being getting considerable investment in the last few years, both from the state and EU.. In this census, figures show that the west of Ireland is catching up in terms of Populaation, growth rates and the investment will follow.

You are being ridiculous. Not so long ago, there were plans brought about to have an Atlantic gateway hub that involves Shannon/Limerick and Galway, not sure if it’s still in action. This is not half the country in fact it’s smaller than County Cork.

Anyway, Shannon will not be closing and neither is Cork in the future. However, worst-case scenario, Cork would close IMO, mailny because Shannon would simply be a better compromise.

sorry not to quibble but cork is the third city in ireland.

Since we are discussing infrastructure and development one can only look at it in the context of the whole island.

@Angry Rebel wrote:

The airport gets the same amount per passenger as if it was a “normal” unsubsidised service.
2 – Many of the subsidised routes operate early morning and late evening sectors to facilitate business travellers and connections (although the report indicates the importance of connections is exagerated). These timings are classified as “out of hours” times, for which the airport charges are vastly higher.

This looks to be a significant factor. In relation to Knock, the report says:

6.5.2: Financial Impact on Airport
Knock operated for many years outside the EASP, and the service represents only 5.3% of its
passengers. However the service is very significant financially for the airport.

Data from the airport company indicate that in 2002 income from the EASP service was
€660,000, or 52% of total flight income.

On the subject of Knock, is it not a large part of the problem? Cork can generate a couple of million real passengers, even if we might wonder at why €160 million was spent on a terminal if there was no prospect that income from passengers would cover even half the cost.

But Shannon exists only on its right to hijack every second transatlantic flight, and the current military traffic. Take than away, and whatever hope it has of attracting custom is undermined by Knock and, to a lesser extent, Galway and Kerry. There are simply too many airports on the Western seaboard, with the result that none of them has sufficient scale to make any real contribution to regional development.

@schuhart wrote:

… none of them has sufficient scale to make any real contribution to regional development.

give it a few years , when the introduction of open skies between the us and europe and happened and without substantial change none of the airports will be up to much . bar dublin

All the little ones need to close and fast.

@Angry Rebel wrote:

Common sense would suggest though that a 3/4 hour hop from Farranfore is infinitely more preferable to a 5hr 40min bus ride from Dublin to Tralee? What level of subvention, if any, for that route is a much more difficult one to decide on,

3/4 hour hop becomes two hours with check in times and airport transfer times.

Tralee is 300km from Dublin, so it should be possible by road or rail in 3 hours. Best rail time is currently around 4 hours – that’s only 75km/h We should be able to manage 100km/h with improved track. Trains make less CO2 per passenger than planes – our multi-billion Kyoto fines starting in 2008 will be another form of subvention to airlines.

But there are more subsidies: no duty or VAT is levied on airline fuel and there’s no VAT on tickets.

These subsidised routes copy the ‘spokes to Dublin’ form of infrastructure used by road and rail.

You mention that Greater Cork… is over 250,000. You should have mentioned Hinterland. Limerick’s hinterland reaches 200,000. Now Galway, has a hinterland too probs not to far behind. But besides, Cork is not double the population or extraordinary….

My quote stated that citizens of Limerick believe that there boundary issues are extraordinary.

Cork county council are no more willing to let go of key population areas than Clare are. They would stand to lose in excess of 100,000 from their service area if the boundary was to be extended. This would seriously impact the funding required to administer the largest county in the land. Now I would like you to back up your claim that rates are higher.

Now go and have a look at the facts and you will reaslise that the greater Cork area (not hinterland) has a population well in excess of the combined Greater populations of Limerick, Galway, Ennis and Shannon. Do some research for a change rather than spouting emotive clap trap aimed at backing up the claim that Cork airport should be dropped in favour of Shannon.

I have homes in Kerry and Dublin and spend large amounts of work-time travelling overseas. I cannot manage my overseas trips out of Shannon / Kerry / Cork due to the lack of flight frequency and/or destination choice. I can fly from Dublin to most UK destinations and return in a day ; I cannot achieve that from Kerry / Cork / Shannon.
Shannon is an anachronism, resulting from the old flyingboat station at Rineanna. It should be converted to a freight hub. What was known as Aer Rianta is a badly managed company that was made worse by continual political appointees to the Board. The sooner it is broken up and sold the better.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

These subsidised routes copy the ‘spokes to Dublin’ form of infrastructure used by road and rail.

why i agued the retention of shannon over and above all others . refocusing saved monies into a new double tracked 200/km/h railine between cork and galway through shannon.

Then updgrading (in fact basically building from scratch) a 300 km/h double track to limerick /shannnon. then closing or selling the two routes galway to dublin and cork to dublin .

bus routes well managed and well designed would provide an equal level of service to our trains at the moment. I.e. since the trains stop in so many places the whole point of them is removed. instead create quality bus routes. I.e. insist that say kilkeny or cahersiveen reserve completely a route through the towns for buses. this would radically improve the times journeys.

with the northeast sligo donegal things are more difficult. i would favour a train link (100/hour) to galway , followed by the closure of the dublin sligo line.

Long term the galway to dublin road has been built in the wrong place . it should start some twenty miles north of galway , and head north east passing within 20 miles of sligo before turning dead east . it should also pass with 20 /30 miles of the northern irish ring road before ending substantially north of dublin (again 20/30 miles) on the m1.

same goes for dublin to cork and dublin to limerick , both should be torn up with a new motorway built midway between limerick and cork, passing near enough to cahir cashel kilkenny .carlow and ending substantially south of dublin (at least 30 miles because of the wicklow mountains).

as kerryblogs2 points out none of the western airports are currently working properly .

@schuhart wrote:

This looks to be a significant factor. In relation to Knock, the report says:….

That’s a good point, but a bit disingenuous as the report also says that staffing costs in relation to EASP services amount to €553k, so if the EASP routes were abandoned, the loss would only be €107k.

personally think Shannon has two advantages over Cork
1. Location – really is the equivalent in location for the west coast as Dublin is to the east.
2. Facilities and infrastructure – ALthough in many ways there are many problems in Shannon with staff numbers etc..the facilities there are excelllent. One Air bridge Cork doesn;t really have the same capability., Its a nightmare logistically even with the new terminal. Shannons runway will always stand to it.

Anyone who believes Shannon relies totally on US transits/stopover (militrary or otherwise) really hasn;t a notion and probably hasn;t been in the place in a while.
In saying all that this is one stoopid thread! Cork v’s Shannon v’s Limerick v’s Galway…blaa blaa.
If the current government didn;t go for the spokes from Dublin thing and distributed things a little bit more balanced there wouldn;t be an issue. Outside the “greater dublin area” crap the coutry is being shafted imo!

whats is funny is that what i propose reverses the balance away from dublin to cork and the east, yet these are the people who disagree with my crazy ideas most.

cork / limerick and galway don’t have the numbers or the wealth to compete with dublin , unless they band together.

that means you can all keep your fiddly airstrips only to go on and change in dublin or london to get anywhere. (ok i am sorry maybe there will be one service to new york from shannon but thats it.)

Your narrow points of views will only cement the shape of the country as it is . dublin + surroundings.

@Angry Rebel wrote:

That’s a good point, but a bit disingenuous as the report also says that staffing costs in relation to EASP services amount to &#8364]I might be reading the report wrong, and you might have the correct interpretation of the figures. But I took their statement

On the other hand, the company claims that staffing costs related to the service amounted to €553,000 in the same year, or 35% of the total wage bill. Assuming these numbers are correct, and that the EASP wage costs are avoidable, the airport would be at a loss of some €107,000 per annum if the service were lost. If some wage costs turn out to be unavoidable in the short to medium term, losses to the airport would be greater.

to be an implicit suggestion that Knock Airport’s statement that 35% of their staff costs related to the 5% of passengers on the EASP route needed to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Stering aside from Shannon v. Cork.

I can’t see any point in Sligo airport. It’s very close to Knock and it’s runway can’t take a fully laden ATR. Is it in private ownership? Now, I won’t call to close it down, but let it continue without a PSO route.

I also don’t believe that there should be any PSO routes for airports that have international flights. These will continue anyway, so they provide a way for people to connect onwards.

That would pretty much leave Donegal as the only airport with PSO routes. I’d agree with Donegal retaining it anyway, because it’s so far from any reasonable public transport and air is in many ways the only practical route out of the region.

@Spinal Tap wrote:

Mmmmmmm…..

Cemnsus 2006

Pop.Cork City & County 480,909. Increased by 7.4 per.cent.
Pop. Limerick City & County 183.863. Increased by 4.9 per cent.

lol.. I laughed at this again…. What are you saying Cork city is bigger than Belfast now..:p

A quarter of Limerick is in Clare, another small percentage sprawling into Tipp. I’d say the Entire Midwest is still smaller than County Cork. Cork does not have the problem where it’s population is distrubuted into other regions.Sure even China is bigger than Limerick…:D

Agree with Jungle’s points above. Am not a big fan of PSOs and in my opinion it represents bad value for money (although Aer Arann no doubt like it). But back to the thread title.
Dublin needs serious investment in facilities (terminals, extended runways, rail connection to the city). The place is jammers at the moment and it will only get busier. Sadly, the proposed plans for expansion are a half-arsed solution and the reality is that the airport or its users will be no better off. Sadly, Dublin is hostage to political considerations and practical (and better value) solutions are swept aside.
Shannon has great potential too although its current strategy of paying Ryanair for every passenger they fly is probably not the way to build a sustainable operating model. I firmly believe that the ending of the stopover will actually benefit Shannon over the longer term as management finally focuses on its strenghts rather than depending on government life support.
Cork has its spanking new terminal and other infrastructure although the runway and navigation systems remain inadequate (not to mind the culling of three air-bridges). Presumably, it will get a debt write-off of some sort – otherwise the new facility will bankrupt the airport before it can even begin. Thankfully Cork does not have the same overstaffing problems and labour issues as both SNN and DUB, simply because it was traditionally a smaller airport so on the operational side it is somewhat in a better position relative to the others.
All the other airports such as Waterford, Sligo, Kerry, Galway will struggle to establish anything more than the odd PSO route and flights to UK (and maybe northern France) airports. Aside from restricted catchment areas, infrastruture problems such as short runways, limited operating times, lack of ILS navigation systems, etc will work against them. They can however benefit from the small but fast growing business aviation market (helicopters, light business jets, air taxis, light aircraft charters, etc). Cork for instance is presently turning away business jets belonging to the MNCs in the region as there are no available parking stands for them.
Knock has a fine runway but its location works against it. Like much else in Irish aviation policy down the years, politics trumped common sense.
Finally, all the airports in Ireland are subsidised directly or indirectly (either through grants, ownership, or PSOs). Dublin, Shannon and Cork have the potential to operate profitably on an operating level although govenment investment is required for infrastural build out. I would certainly not be in favour of doing what the UK did and privatise the airports…that simply replaces a public monopoly with a private one. But the three airports should operate independently and thus in competition with each other. It would benefit the airports and its customers.

@dave123 wrote:

lol.. I laughed at this again…. What are you saying Cork city is bigger than Belfast now..:p

A quarter of Limerick is in Clare, another small percentage sprawling into Tipp. I’d say the Entire Midwest is still smaller than County Cork. Cork does not have the problem where it’s population is distrubuted into other regions.Sure even China is bigger than Limerick…:D

Ok dingbat I never mentioned Belfast which at the close of business today was part of the United Kingdom.I tried the Government website and could’nt find any figures for Belfast – perhaps you could find them in the latest census http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/2006PreliminaryReport.pdf

A quarter of Limerick is in Clare ? Well I just checked my primary school atlas and nowhere does it say that 25% of Clare is after been annexed by Limerick.I doubt if a lot of Clare natives would like being called from Limerick.

Cork does not have the problem where population is distributed etc but then again it does not have half the problems that Limerick has.

I’m from Dublin where all my friends and family are distributed ALL over Leinster and settled in Louth,Laois,Kildare & Wicklow and use the county they reside in on their postal address etc…….amazing.

🙂 Just want to say how great it is to have such genuine discussion and debating in this forum for a change (at least in the threads I subscribe to). All thanks to the dissolution of the Developments in Cork thread. Who’d have thought?!

@dave123 wrote:

I agree, I think it’s really….just about which regional city can top another. It’s stooopid I guess, but it’s funny. Limerick is competing with the people’s republic of Cork. and Cork is practically bigger than half the country, bla bla bla.

I’d like to repeat that.
Cork people
– think that limerick’s actual population is in Limerick county:D
-Shannon has hardly any other routes beside the millitary/USA traffic
-They even suspect that numbers are lower in Shannon.
– they don’t even realise how much money Cork Airport cost Dublin DDA (which I believe was more of a burden than Shannon)
– They think that Cork does not get enough investment
– an that every part of Ireland outside Leinster and Cork, is underdeveloped.
On top of that they believe Cork has more reasons to keep it, there people from the midwest believe they have more reasons to keep it in the midwest…

So your telling us what were thiking now eh?!

You claim that a quarter of the population of Limerick City is in Clare so that means….wait a minute let me think….this is a tough one….they’re residents of County Clare??

Looking at the DAA annual report, both airports seem roughly equivalent in terms of passenger numbers (taking out Shannon’s hijack victims), with 2.6 million beginning or ending their journeys in Shannon compared to 2.7 million in Cork. I’ll admit to a slight preference for Cork, as its business is pretty much undistorted by any artifice like the stopover. The stopover has to be one of the most nationally damaging pieces of parochial politics, so its hard to feel empathy for people who even today benefit from it despite the cost to the rest of the community.

I take it we’ve all read the newspapers. Cork expresses a fear that if it has to cover any significant part of its debt, it’s finished. But there seems to be a reasonably level of confidence that it can cover its operating costs. Shannon also has a significant debt issue, but has no chance of covering its operating costs without significant redundancies – which someone will have to pay for.

Does anyone regard it as politically feasible to write off the investment in either airport and shut them down, or to give one preference over the other? It is inevitable that some formula will be found to bail them both out. But I feel, in some way, this shows up the problem caused by our lack of real decentralisation – in the sense of regional authorities being able to decide things for themselves. I think it would be interesting if Limerick and Cork were told ‘here’s €160 million each. You can either use it to make your soon to independent airports debt free, or choose some other project where you would prefer to see the money spent on the understanding that your airport will go its own merry way unsubsidised – and into liquidation if that’s where life takes it.’

Without the element of local choice, it just becomes a matter of local politicians advocating anything that means more resources for their own areas. Even if its not their highest priority, or if the cost does not justify it, they’ll still look for it in the same way that a thief is happy to ruin your house just to get €50.

@dave123 wrote:

AHA… Half the state would be Munster and Connaght…. Please keep into context. I said the N18 Corridor. We all know Cork is the second city of Ireland, and has being getting considerable investment in the last few years, both from the state and EU.. In this census, figures show that the west of Ireland is catching up in terms of Populaation, growth rates and the investment will follow.

Anyway, Shannon will not be closing and neither is Cork in the future. However, worst-case scenario, Cork would close IMO, mailny because Shannon would simply be a better compromise.

You say the west of Ireland is catching up in terms of population…. growth rates and the like. Where did you get a notion like that? From what I see in the census, the population has indeed grown in the west, but so too has the population of Dublin and Cork. In fact, isn’t the population of Cork growing faster than any county in the west? I think so. I would imagine, that compared to the trends in Cork and Dublin, the population in the west is shrinking, if you know what I mean. The divide in terms of population compared to the last census is greater this year between Cork and the west. And as for Shannon being a better compromise… don’t make me laugh. It’s an ageing airport with a 60 year old runway… long over due for renovation, but I guess the European Union hasn’t copped onto the safety regulations at the airport yet, seen as they are busy with the illegal subsidies given to Ryanair and all that.

@a boyle wrote:

sorry not to quibble but cork is the third city in ireland.

Last time I looked at my map, Belfast was in the United Kingdom…. a completely different country in fact. That is unless you were refering to Limerick…. LOL

@dave123 wrote:

Cork people
– think that limerick’s actual population is in Limerick county:D
-Shannon has hardly any other routes beside the millitary/USA traffic
-They even suspect that numbers are lower in Shannon.
– they don’t even realise how much money Cork Airport cost Dublin DDA (which I believe was more of a burden than Shannon)
– They think that Cork does not get enough investment
– an that every part of Ireland outside Leinster and Cork, is underdeveloped.
On top of that they believe Cork has more reasons to keep it, there people from the midwest believe they have more reasons to keep it in the midwest…

Let’s not forget. while ALL the other regional cities including Dublin were leading the Celtic tiger boom, Cork had only started to take off in the last few years.Now it’s like Cork can take on Galway/Limerick or the rest of Ireland.

• Most of the population is in Clare! You noted that yourself!
• Passenger numbers are lower in Shannon! (see post #49)
• Can you provide some backup to your statement that Cork has cost more than Shannon?
• Cork doesn’t get enough government investment, nor does Limerick, Galway or anywhere outside the Pale.

Your comment about the Celtic Tiger must be a joke? Even though Cork City did not benefit as much from the Tiger as other cities (by which you seem to mean new buildings or development), the economy of the Cork hinterland was a significant contributor to the Celtic Tiger. Have you ever taken a drive around the Airport Business Park, Ringaskiddy, Little Island………………

The greater Cork region contributes 33% of GDP. The County has one eight of the population of Ireland. How does Limerick (and Clare of course) compare?

Dave123, let’s agree to disagree, you are refusing to look at the proof provided by facts. The greater populations (according to facts) of our relevant cities, including suburban sprawl, irrespective of which council/county area it is in are 274,000 in Cork and 87,000 for Limerick.

Will you accept wikipedia’s facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_in_Ireland

Amen.

@mickeydocs wrote:

The greater Cork region contributes 33% of GDP. The County has one eight of the population of Ireland. How does Limerick (and Clare of course) compare?

Dave123, let’s agree to disagree, you are refusing to look at the proof provided by facts. The greater populations (according to facts) of our relevant cities, including suburban sprawl, irrespective of which council/county area it is in are 274,000 in Cork and 87,000 for Limerick.

Will you accept wikipedia’s facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_in_Ireland

Amen.

Ok FACTS then

Cork in the last census… 186.000
Limerick in the last census 87,000

Keenly you put in the METRO area of Cork and added just Limerick city… that’s a bit lame

Both are including city and suburbs, though not all IMO.

Midwest takes a large chunk of the GDP too BTW.

Still exaggeration.

@Angry Rebel wrote:

• Cork doesn’t get enough government investment, nor does Limerick, Galway or anywhere outside the Pale.

Not quite right. Dublin’s infrastructure is usually only provided long after the need has become undeniable. The only places that end up with more infrastructure than they know what to do with are towns like Charlestown. The problem is an inability by Government to assign any kind of rationality or priority to the investment needs of the cities.

@mickeydocs wrote:

The greater Cork region contributes 33% of GDP. The County has one eight of the population of Ireland. How does Limerick (and Clare of course) compare?

Can we have a source for this, as it seems excessive.

@dave123 wrote:

Ok FACTS then

Cork in the last census… 186.000
Limerick in the last census 87,000

Keenly you put in the METRO area of Cork and added just Limerick city… that’s a bit lame

Both are including city and suburbs, though not all IMO.

Midwest takes a large chunk of the GDP too BTW.

Still exaggeration.

These facts are from wikipedia (formerly encyclopedia brittanica).

Limerick City is the census was 52,000, not 87,000, haven’t you heard that the city is in danger of losing it’s title as a European city. The figures are inclusive of suburbs (not limited by council/county nonsense). There is a massive difference between 274,000 and 89,000 don’t you think.

Don’t bother replying to me, contact the guys at wikipedia, they are always willing to listen as long as you introduce some facts and not just hear say aimed at bigging up Limerick and it’s 200 miles of suburbs.

Of course you’ll never let facts get in the way of a good story

Jeez, can;t believe this argument is till being allowed to continue. Stoopid stoopid thread.
It seems the peoples republic of cork has gone to the Southerners head. Becoming more arrogant than the Dubliners.:rolleyes:

Anyway seems the Limerick folk got there long before ye

http://www.limericksoviet.com :p

@schuhart wrote:

Can we have a source for this, as it seems excessive.

I’ll have a look for the cso figures. The gdp is aided by the booming PharmaChem Sector (obviously not a contributor to the celtic tiger according to dave123). Pfizer alone contributes in excess of $7 billion to the gdp of the country.

@mickeydocs wrote:

Don’t bother replying to me, contact the guys at wikipedia, they are always willing to listen as long as you introduce some facts and not just hear say aimed at bigging up Limerick and it’s 200 miles of suburbs.

Of course you’ll never let facts get in the way of a good story

Wikipedia is hardly the most accurate source of facts now in fairness ?!!?

@mickeydocs wrote:

I’ll have a look for the cso figures. The gdp is aided by the booming PharmaChem Sector (obviously not a contributor to the celtic tiger according to dave123). Pfizer alone contributes in excess of $7 billion to the gdp of the country.

Page 19 of this report shows‘GVA’ by region, which the notes to the document seems to say is much the same as GDP. Yes, all that stuff about multinational profits seems to apply – but I don’t see that as having a big impact in this context where we just want a quick and dirty picture of the contribution of various regions to the national economy.

Taking 2002, which seems to be the most recent data.

Dublin accounts for 36.9% of GVA

Mid East Region (Meath/Kildare/Wicklow) accounts for 8.5%

Mid West Region (Clare/Limerick/North Tipperary) accounts for 7.2%

South West Region (Cork/Kerry) accounts for 19.4%

There’s no division by county, but using the figure for primary income on page 12 as a proxy would suggest an 80/20 split between Cork and Kerry. That would suggest Cork alone contributes about 15% of GVA.

Incidently the South West region makes as much of a contribution as the Border, Midland and Western regions combined. That’s counties Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Louth, Monaghan, Sligo, Laois, Longford, Offaly, Westmeath, Galway, Mayo and Roscommon. While its only one indicator, it does put into perspective any suggesting that places like Sligo, Castlebar, Letterkenny etc. etc. have any chance of becoming thriving centres with economies of scale that would make them as attractive a base as Dublin for internationally oriented businesses.

So, putting it all together, Cork does not contribute anything like 33% of economic activity. Dublin does (which, to be honest, is what made me feel your figure was off.)

However, it is true to say that Cork is a much more significant component of the national economy than either Limerick on its own or the Mid West region. If we’re looking for a concentration in one centre outside Dublin that might be a base for development, there’s really no contest.

The Cork Airport vs Shannon Airport argument is getting a little tired and pointless.

1) There is absolutely no question, not even theoretically of anyone closing either of them.
2) Shannon is not ideally located to serve Cork’s catchment area, which is substantial and growing rapidly and any suggestion that it could replace cork airport is just not realistic.

Air travel is about rapid point-to-point not about driving/getting the train for hours to get to a superhub.

It wouldn’t even make any economic sense as most flights are short haul and their planes don’t carry that many passengers at a time. I mean, a typical A320 or 737 flight is only about 100 to just shy of 200 people on an A321 which only fly Cork and Dublin to LHR anyway.

Even transatlantic is increasingly mid-sized aircraft, despite the hype sorrounding the A380. It seems that there’s a lot of interest in fast point-to-point that can serve non hub-cities.

Shannon will have to concentrate on building its european traffic for its own catchment area (i..e Limerick to Galway and into the midlands) as well as developing itself as a serious tourist gateway into Ireland for both European and transatlatantic flights.

The whole concept of compulsary stop overs, troops etc is all really unsustainable and not desirable going forward.

The stop-over is an environmental disaster too given that the aircraft expends huge amounts of fuel doing an extra takeoff at Shannon en route to Dublin and not only that it puts the aircraft through unnecessary extra cycles (i.e. take-off & landings) which would reduce their value and lifespan signifigantly.

Shannon could become a cost-effective freight hub for Ireland though as Dublin becomes busier and more congested it will make a lot of sense, particularly for freight that isn’t *that* urgent.

The likes of DHL, FedEX etc will continue to operate direclty into Dublin and Cork simply because they need to be able to get point-to-point overnight from various destinations. The Irish market’s pretty insignifigant in their scale of operations and Cork, Dublin and Shannon are usually reached out of LHR or Amsterdam etc. with 737-sized fast freight flights.

Shannon could also become a serious hub for service and maintenence, it has huge amounts of space around it that could be developed to base a fleet out of for maintenence e.g. ryanair, aer lingus, ba, etc could make much more use of it for non-passenger carrying duties. These would also create jobs in Shannon itself.

Don’t get me wrong, shannon’s a great facility to have on the west coast. It just needs to be developed sensibly, playing up its advantages not trying to undermine another excellent airport that performs an entirely different function in another city.

Talk of it replacing Cork is just ridiculous in any context.

IF, and it’s a BIG if, an airline decides to fly A380 into Ireland. Shannon could become a hub for this sort of activity. The only issue is that it would absoltuely need to have connecting smaller flights to Dublin, Belfast, Cork and beyond. Passengers aren’t going to transer fo cars, trains and busses.

As for how many state subsidised airports we need.

Cork, Dublin and Shannon is a good mix and have reasonable spread for catchment however, I would like to see some north-south development cooperation on Derry City airport. This could provide truely excellent access to Donegal and the Northwest generally. I realise that derry already does, but I feel given donegal’s isolated position that it could do with a little support from the government in the republic too.!

—

I had to get from Cork to Letterkenny a few weeks ago ended up flying

Cork – Stansted – Derry … it was amazingly easy! I wouldn’t ever consider driving it again!

@MrX wrote:

IF, and it’s a BIG if, an airline decides to fly A380 into Ireland. Shannon could become a hub for this sort of activity.

on the busiest route in the world , between dublin and london, it is an absolute certainty that the a380 will be used between shannon london. this aircraft can take up to 800 hundred people. Think of the cost savings .

It will completely decimate what is left of the car ferry business, leaving only freight on the seas. It will not only affect dublin but also decimate cork’s airport.

The same scepticism regarding large planes was evident when the 747 came out. While there is undoubtely a move towards more point to point connection. The two richest islands in the world (save japan, possibly) need and will sustain the a380.

What will cork rebels when going on holidays in the face of a 5 /10 euro tickets to london with an onward connection ?

ryanair has revolutionised air travel single handely in europe. And the a380 will completely rewrite the rules for travel in ireland .

@a boyle wrote:

on the busiest route in the world , between dublin and london, it is an absolute certainty that the a380 will be used between shannon london. this aircraft can take up to 800 hundred people. Think of the cost savings .

It will completely decimate what is left of the car ferry business, leaving only freight on the seas. It will not only affect dublin but also decimate cork’s airport.

The same scepticism regarding large planes was evident when the 747 came out. While there is undoubtely a move towards more point to point connection. The two richest islands in the world (save japan, possibly) need and will sustain the a380.

What will cork rebels when going on holidays in the face of a 5 /10 euro tickets to london with an onward connection ?

ryanair has revolutionised air travel single handely in europe. And the a380 will completely rewrite the rules for travel in ireland .

Cost savings – Imagine 800+ people checking in for the flight to London from “Shannon” – that could be fun ! just after the 200+ cars and 200+ more from Dublin all traverse our “excellent” roads network on the way to Shannon.Then imagine waiting at the luggage carousel…….? Is there enough time to wait for luggage before your onward connection to Singapore ?

Car ferries carry cars and there will always be a market for that on the seas. Our airports cannot handle the A380 at the moment,our airllines have no plans to buy the A380 especially Ryanair.
The A380 behemoth will be on long haul routes if Airbus ever get if off the ground commercially.

Apart from that all this is years away and by then there will be “Star Trek” like teleporters available on every street corner of the world and Irelands one and only “Teleporter” will be based……..wait for it……..SHANNON !

How many 747s are used on short-haul out of Ireland? How many 777s or A340s? The largest aircraft used on short haul flights are 757s and A330s and those are mostly restricted to charters or Aer Lingus seeking to squeeze an extra rotation out of an A330 between transatlantic trips.

I’m not someone who believes the A380 was a work of folly. It has a great future for high density long-haul routes (London-Hong Kong, New York etc.). It has a great future as a freighter. But for short haul, it’s a non-starter. One A380 could carry all the traffic between Shannon and one of London’s airports on a given day. The money in the airline business is in business passengers who will pay more for a day trip. The possibility disappears with an A380.

Regardless, how many British or Irish airlines have A380s on order? I think it’s just Virgin, and I’m sure they have better plans for them than flying them to Ireland.

With respect a boyle, I think you’re dreaming. The A380 has a theoretical max of 800, but is intended to carry around 550, a number not far off the 747’s current max. How many 747s do you see lining up at Dublin these days? The A380 is a long haul beast, and not designed for short hop. While it might seem to fit the Ryanair pack em in philosophy this plane would be very difficult to run short-haul and recoup the purchase/running costs.

People want direct flights at convenient times, not a once daily paddy wagon from Heathrow to Shannon.

@MrX wrote:

I would like to see some north-south development cooperation on Derry City airport. This could provide truely excellent access to Donegal and the Northwest generally. I realise that derry already does, but I feel given donegal’s isolated position that it could do with a little support from the government in the republic too.!

The Irish Government supports both City of Derry Airport and Donegal Airport.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Derry_Airport
During 1998 and 1999 safety improvements were undertaken at the airport with funding coming from both the British and Irish governments and Derry City Council, as the airport serves much of North-West Ireland.

In May 2006, the EU Commission gave the green light for the Irish and British governments to invest €15 million in the airport.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donegal_Airport
The airport started operations in 1986 and was developed with funds and assistance from the Irish Government, private investors, Donegal County Council, the International Fund for Ireland and the European Regional Development Fund. In the 1990’s the runway was extended to 1,500 metres and a new terminal building with modern navigational aids and equipment was added.

Aer Arann remains the only scheduled airline using the airport. They receive Public Service Obligation funding from the Irish Government to subsidise the route to Dublin, a contract that was renewed in 2005.

If Ryanair keep adding routes to SNN (they just added another two to make it 25 destinations in europe I believe), then a lo-co transatlantic outfit would be viable. Ryanair could serve as a feeder, and a ‘pack-em in’ outfit flogging dirt cheap seats to some airport in NY would probably do well. Long runway and no noise restrictions or restricted operating hours either.

I gave up on this when someone compared Wikipedia to the Ency. Brittanica. Jeez!

The Corkmen boasting about Pfizer accounting for 7bn of GDP have also lost the plot. It is a “nominal” sum as it is based , even excluding the transfer pricing issues, on the highest-value product on earth – Viagra; even Intel chips are cheaper, as is platinum, gram for gram. How many people do they employ? It is common knowledge that Coca Cola and Pepsi equally distort the figures of our food exports with their treatmemnt of syrup.
Corcaigh boy – there are severe noise restrictions at the other end, NYC has clamped down on noise, it has banned helicopters from overflying NYC (long before 9/11) and routes light aircraft traffic over the rivers, East and Hudson.

Six hours 30 mins Dublin – S. Kerry today, one guy with a digger, another with a truck closed a stretch of the N7 before Athy turnoff, 45 minute delay mid afternoon. Two men causing a huge tailback. Are there any brains in Kildare CoCo or are they all admiring their new offices?

@corcaighboy wrote:

If Ryanair keep adding routes to SNN (they just added another two to make it 25 destinations in europe I believe), then a lo-co transatlantic outfit would be viable. Ryanair could serve as a feeder, and a ‘pack-em in’ outfit flogging dirt cheap seats to some airport in NY would probably do well. Long runway and no noise restrictions or restricted operating hours either.

From RTE.ie.
Kind of looks like they’re feeding Dublin’s European routes from the Cork-Dublin flights. (London /Liverpool being their only other routes from ORK)

Ryanair to add two Shannon routes

July 26, 2006 11:21

Ryanair is to launch two new routes from Shannon and add additional flights on two more Irish routes.

The new Shannon services – to Bournemouth and Edinburgh – will start on October 31. Ryanair will also add a sixth daily flight from Dublin to Gatwick and a fourth flight from Cork to Dublin.

Separately, the airline also announced four new routes from London, two from London Stansted to Deauville (France) and Pula (Croatia) and two from London Luton to Fez and Marrakech (Morocco). These routes will also start on October 31.

KerryBog – any modern aircraft complies with noise restrictions in NY. And if a lo-co was going to fly there, I imagine they would want to fly to Islip Airport or Providence Airport (or any ‘cheaper’ airport…if it were feasible). And they would not neccessairly need to use A380s either. SNN is probably the one airport in Europe ideally suited to low cost transatlantic carrier. By the way, helicopters do operate in NY…indeed they have reopened s heliport in downtown Manhattan to ferry those with lots of dosh and no patience to JFK and La Guardia. Anyway, just my two cents worth…I just hope that SNN and ORK can get their act together and be self-sustainable.

@mickeydocs wrote:

These facts are from wikipedia (formerly encyclopedia brittanica).

Limerick City is the census was 52,000, not 87,000, haven’t you heard that the city is in danger of losing it’s title as a European city. The figures are inclusive of suburbs (not limited by council/county nonsense). There is a massive difference between 274,000 and 89,000 don’t you think.

Don’t bother replying to me, contact the guys at wikipedia, they are always willing to listen as long as you introduce some facts and not just hear say aimed at bigging up Limerick and it’s 200 miles of suburbs.

Of course you’ll never let facts get in the way of a good story

LOL…. you make me laugh so much at your comments… 52,000 where is your facts for this, and if Limerick is really this (since we all know at this stage it’s not) what was the figure for Cork just below that figure on the Census, you hypercrite…..:p 119,000… and falling rapidly. by what percentage?

Btw wikipedia on Limerick is 97,000 from the last I time I checked for figures on Limerick, It seems to change from time to time, Wikipedia also stated that it’s a very underbounded city with the figures of 52,000 very misleading, why didn’t you tell us this. I’ll put it up it you want.
the 274,000 you mentioned is half of county Cork. You are so full of it ,at this stage.

Edit… (My intellegence is now tested lol)
Mickeydocks figures for Cork- is it’s hinterland and suburbs including Cork city- metroplian etc that would take in a 50 mile radius. He then compares it to, just Limerick city( inadequate underbounded boundary) that’s 60% of it’s population that’s is not even included.
.
The figures for Limerick is on the shannonside thread posted by Shane, can’t remember what page but near the begining, it’s around 225,000 for it’s hinterland. so Limerick is smaller than Cork but not exsessively so!

The figures he should have pointed out to balance the arguement.
Would be 184,000 for Cork and 87,000 for limerick which is the census 02 results including suburbs, but what the heck, It’s a stupid arguement about Cork… You know compare Cork to Dublin… and they will shut up..

@dave123 wrote:

LOL…. you make me laugh so much at your comments… 52,000 where is your facts for this, and if Limerick is really this (since we all know at this stage it’s not) what was the figure for Cork just below that figure on the Census, you hypercrite…..:p 119,000… and falling rapidly. by what percentage?

Btw wikipedia on Limerick is 97,000 from the last I time I checked for figures on Limerick, It seems to change from time to time, Wikipedia also stated that it’s a very underbounded city with the figures of 52,000 very misleading, why didn’t you tell us this. I’ll put it up it you want.
the 274,000 you mentioned is half of county Cork. You are so full of it ,at this stage.

Edit… (My intellegence is now tested lol)
Mickeydocks figures for Cork- is it’s hinterland and suburbs including Cork city- metroplian etc that would take in a 50 mile radius. He then compares it to, just Limerick city( inadequate underbounded boundary) that’s 60% of it’s population that’s is not even included.
.
The figures for Limerick is on the shannonside thread posted by Shane, can’t remember what page but near the begining, it’s around 225,000 for it’s hinterland. so Limerick is smaller than Cork but not exsessively so!

The figures he should have pointed out to balance the arguement.
Would be 184,000 for Cork and 87,000 for limerick which is the census 02 results including suburbs, but what the heck, It’s a stupid arguement about Cork… You know compare Cork to Dublin… and they will shut up..

You are a very sad man. Like a typical person from Limerick you resort to name calling (hypocrite) and personal abuse.

Populations are not something to get hot and bothered about. My city and town are larger than your town by a country mile. So what. Doesn’t make it a better town. And it certainly doesn’t require abuse. You’ve just proved something that most of us know about your town.

I will not contribute again to this thread. Stay in your little inferiority complex all you like. Au revoir petit con.

@mickeydocs wrote:

You are a very sad man. Like a typical person from Limerick you resort to name calling (hypocrite) and personal abuse.

Populations are not something to get hot and bothered about. My city and town are larger than your town by a country mile. So what. Doesn’t make it a better town. And it certainly doesn’t require abuse. You’ve just proved something that most of us know about your town.

I will not contribute again to this thread. Stay in your little inferiority complex all you like. Au revoir petit con.

Perhaps I’ll ignore it, Cork is more inferiour than Limerick. I just want Facts, not Hypercritical, biased ones, I mean I’ll quote things.

Perhaps it was you who was doing the Mr. Inferiour.

@mickeydocs wrote:

You are a very sad man. Like a typical person from Limerick you resort to name calling (hypocrite) and personal abuse.

Populations are not something to get hot and bothered about. My city and town are larger than your town by a country mile. So what. Doesn’t make it a better town. And it certainly doesn’t require abuse. You’ve just proved something that most of us know about your town.

I will not contribute again to this thread. Stay in your little inferiority complex all you like. Au revoir petit con.

Perhaps I’ll ignore it, Cork is more inferiour than Limerick. I just want Facts, not Hypercritical, biased ones, I mean I’ll quote things.

Perhaps it was you who was doing the Mr. Inferiour. Personal abuse, I subject my opinion on your comments made, however you called me sad, typical and from Limerick. but guess what this thread is stupid, as Cork can’t admit to real facts.

@mickeydocs wrote:

You are a very sad man. Like a typical person from Limerick you resort to name calling (hypocrite) and personal abuse.

Populations are not something to get hot and bothered about. My city and town are larger than your town by a country mile. So what. Doesn’t make it a better town. And it certainly doesn’t require abuse. You’ve just proved something that most of us know about your town.

I will not contribute again to this thread. Stay in your little inferiority complex all you like. Au revoir petit con.

Perhaps I’ll ignore it, Cork is more inferiour than Limerick. I just want Facts, not Hypercritical, biased ones, I mean I’ll quote things you’ve said that is inferiour about Cork.

Perhaps it was you who was doing the Mr. Inferiour. Personal abuse, I subject my opinion on your comments made, however you called me sad, typical and from Limerick. but guess what this thread is stupid, as some can’t admit to real facts.

What’s that about “proved” something about Limerick?

@dave123 wrote:

Perhaps I’ll ignore it, Cork is more inferiour than Limerick. I just want Facts, not Hypercritical, biased ones, I mean I’ll quote things you’ve said that is inferiour about Cork.

Perhaps it was you who was doing the Mr. Inferiour. Personal abuse, I subject my opinion on your comments made, however you called me sad, typical and from Limerick. but guess what this thread is stupid, as some can’t admit to real facts.

What’s that about “proved” something about Limerick?

Okay dave123 , the real facts,the census, states that Limerick City has a population of 52,000 in its current boundary, and dont go saying that its low because of a match,im sure the people of limerick are smart enough to fill the form in the next day

The census states that Cork City in its current boundary has a population of 119,000

Forget about suburbs and hinterland,those are the populations of both cities,no matter what anyone else says.

@dave123 wrote:

Perhaps it was you who was doing the Mr. Inferiour. Personal abuse, I subject my opinion on your comments made, however you called me sad, typical and from Limerick. but guess what this thread is stupid, as some can’t admit to real facts.

We told you the real facts, you just can’t handle them. It’s pure ignorance on your behalf. There is no point trying to make Limerick and Galway sound like one huge conurbation….. because it isn’t and no-body is buying into it. I might as well state that Waterford is a suburb of Cork if I carry on the way you do, but I really don’t want to sink to your level. You turned a thread about subsidised airports into a Cork v Limerick thread and this really isn’t the place for it. This thread should be ended before it gets even more out of hand and the Samaritans are busy enough down Shannonside as it is.

@dave123 wrote:

Perhaps I’ll ignore it, Cork is more inferiour than Limerick. I just want Facts, not Hypercritical, biased ones, I mean I’ll quote things.

Perhaps it was you who was doing the Mr. Inferiour. Personal abuse, I subject my opinion on your comments made, however you called me sad, typical and from Limerick. but guess what this thread is stupid, as Cork can’t admit to real facts.

Inferiour ???:)

lol :rolleyes: different culture and traditions down that way.

@A-ha wrote:

You turned a thread about subsidised airports into a Cork v Limerick thread and this really isn’t the place for it. This thread should be ended before it gets even more out of hand and the Samaritans are busy enough down Shannonside as it is.

No I haven’t… I just want facts that fit… Hoggy already answered that for me. you’ve turn it into a rant. with just your last comment. Nothing to compete with there.

@dave123 wrote:

I just want facts that fit…

Ummmm, have you read the last three pages? All the facts are there, you just seem to be ignoring them because they don’t fit what you want to hear.

@A-ha wrote:

Ummmm, have you read the last three pages? All the facts are there, you just seem to be ignoring them because they don’t fit what you want to hear.

Hear hear.

@A-ha wrote:

Ummmm, have you read the last three pages? All the facts are there, you just seem to be ignoring them because they don’t fit what you want to hear.

I have….. Mickeydocs figures were out of proportion in the comparisons he was making. But I see the facts. Not yours frankly. What do I not want to hear?

I think the facts you are seeing aren’t the facts that the rest of Ireland goes by. My facts are much much more accurate than yours as they come straight from the CSO, not fictitious numbers that I heard one night in the local pub at closing time. And come now…. are you really that predictable? I’m sure what you do not want to hear is screaming out loud for everyone else. You want to create your own reality so you can believe that Limerick is larger than it seems, that it’s suburbs extend from Donegal to Wexford and that Limerick is a world class city that is second to none.
A little exaggerated but ye all know what I mean.

@A-ha wrote:

I think the facts you are seeing aren’t the facts that the rest of Ireland goes by. My facts are much much more accurate than yours as they come straight from the CSO, not fictitious numbers that I heard one night in the local pub at closing time. And come now…. are you really that predictable? I’m sure what you do not want to hear is screaming out loud for everyone else. You want to create your own reality so you can believe that Limerick is larger than it seems, that it’s suburbs extend from Donegal to Wexford and that Limerick is a world class city that is second to none.
A little exaggerated but ye all know what I mean.

The entire thread is now focused on you!

Shut up the lot of ye! Seriously guys, aren’t we beyond this?

I’ve had a rethink. You’re both wrong. The real future is Knock, as apparently it already services half the country.

“Knock International Airport is Ireland’s fourth international airport, serving up to 13 counties. Some 21 million passengers per year travel through airports in the south and east, 6 million passengers travel through airports in Northern Ireland, which has almost the same population as the border midlands and west region.”

http://www.shannonairport.com if anyone interested. all the facts and figures are there.:)

Besides from the open skies agreement/Ryanair hub, what are the concrete plans for the forciable future, in terms of new developments and new markets. Will the Cargo plan go ahead as planned?, and it will turn a lot of the transathlantic lost business to Freight as a counter balance. As Shannon is growing rapidly when will the actual terminal reach capacity.

An figures for Transatlantic has being static since 2000. The truth is the Millitary and US traffic is having much less impact than thought.

I take it this is the key data you want us to see. In fairness, its really only showing us what we know already – Shannon notionally serves 3.3 million passengers, but that shrinks to slightly less than Cork once we pull out the transatlantic hijack victims.

They have attracted an amount of Ryanair business, which they hardly needed a new transatlantic passenger terminal for, any more than they need air bridges to operate a freight hub. It illustrates how Shannon’s history is based on politics triumphing over reason.

The freight idea sounds like wishful thinking. Why in particular would Shannon be chosen for that purpose? The only reason for freight to gravitate there is because it has a long runway that few want to use. I’m not confident that’s enough.

hi there, ive skipped thru these pages so forgive me if this point has been made already:

Only in Ireland it seems that there can be an argument about whether an airport in the middle of nowhere with a long history of gov. support (open skies policy strong midwest lobby) and having to rely on miltary flights and having to beg the likes of ryanair to locate to the airport which is much bigger capacity then its passengers numbers deserve is a more viable prospect then an airport near the 2nd largest population centre(theres almost half a million people in cork county alone) which is the de facto capital/centre of munster an despite being restricted by the government from offering transatlantic flights and which hasnt bent over backwards to accomodate ryanair still manages to pull in near equal numbers to shannon.if cork airport enjoyed the kind of support shannon has enjoyed imagine where it would be now!!

Well it was sorted, and your points are not exactly clear on Ryanair case. There are two differnt airports that have differnt roles.

The new Cork airport website was launched on Tuesday to coincide with the opening of the arrivals section of the new terminal. The departures section of the airport is due to open by August 15th. The website is really good. Has live flight info, links to the regional tourist sites, whats on in Cork, etc. Real interactive site. The new shannon site is quite impressive also.

@mickeydocs wrote:

I know it’s not related to architecture, but I’m surprised there is no mention of the terrible decision to halt Aer Lingus flights from Shannon to Heathrow.

Does anyone have an opinion?

As a Corkman I would like to offer my support to the people of the mid-west region. Commercially you cannot blame Aer Lingus for wanting to target an area of greater critical mass so as to maximize profits. Although I’m not sure if they have calculated (‘sliced and diced’ to use their own language) the cost of goodwill and brand loyalty from the Irish people.

Without wanting to get political, the government’s decision to float Aer Lingus was short-sighted in the extreme and the Provincial Ireland will suffer as a result. It is only a matter of time now before they begin to move some of the long haul routes to Belfast.

Yeah the loss of the Heathrow slots is a direct strategic set-back for the airport (320,000 people used the Shannon-Heathrow route each year). The Heathrow airport offers the most convenient hub for transfers to / from Inter-Continental flights. Shannon Airport has no choice other than to get on with it. Bottom line Shannon needs to keep innovating new business ideas in an ever changing aviation world.

Still though Mannion’s “bitter-sweet” remark, smacks more of a “trick or treat” gesture to the ears of most people in the Mid-West. The timing of Aer Lingus’s decision just after the election won’t go unnoticed either. It will be an uncomfortable time for the new profit hungry “Aer Locus” :rolleyes: in the Mid-West if they think they can take the shirt off the man’s back and then head off for Belfast as if nothing happened.

Two good reads “Ireland’s Shannon Story” A case study of local and regional development by Brian Callanan and “Shannon Airport” by Valerie Sweeny.

If Ryanair were allowed to buy Aer Lingus this wouldn’t have happened. Why Aer Lingus chose Belfast to hub out of is a mystery to me. Why not Heathrow to Paris or Geneva I’m ie routes with massive load factors and milk run pricing structures.

I hope that Ryanair increase capacity on the Gatwick route as Heathrow is a dump that very few with a choice select unless you are flying long haul.

I think the whole thing is overexaggerated. Gatwick has transatlantic flights. Fly there. Or else travel to Cork and fly to Heathrow. Next. The decision by the DDDA to stop subsidising routes out of Dublin Airport because it wants to discourage users is far more important and smacks of Irish Rail’s “let’s increase fares to discourage rail users while we’re doing up the network attitude”.

over exaggerated it is not. This is not a Clare/Limerick thing or about propping up SNN. People are complaining all along the West Coast. A job I was supposed to interview for today which would have involved a lot of travel, i’ve just been informed is on indefinite hold due to this. I’m currently unemployed as my job was moved to Dublin primarily because of better access to Europe where the company HQ is located. Dromoland Castle and Doonbeg Golf Course have just put on hold up to 75 million expansion plans on hold. This is very serious for the West Coast. It might not affect you but over exaggerated it it not.

im not too well versed on exactly the goings on in these airports, but from what i heard it makes complete economic sense for aer lingus to move up north… however, can anyone tell me if they are bringing the heathrow slot with them?? is that the issue?? why cant shannon incentify another air company to open routes to Paris etc for intercontinental business….

Landing slots at Heathrow are restricted

The airport has a capacity of 45m pax but is catering for 63m pax some including Willie Walsh would say badly.

The point is heathrow slots are a very scarce resource with carriers such as Delta prepared to pay top dollar for them and routes to Paris, Geneva, New York very lucrative. One has to wonder what Aer Lingus are doing as they are not serving either the shareholders or the national interest in this.

no-one has an issue with expansion at Aer Lingus or them m oving to Belfast..Best of luck to them is what i say. Its moving all 4 daily slots with them is the issue

The governments silence in this is deafing considering the are the major shareholder…. surely the reason the retained the majority holding was to be able to influence decisions from a ‘national interest’ viewpoint…. otherwise what use is it??

The Government is a minority shareholder in Aer Lingus and therefore cannot “control” what it does.

dont get ‘control’ and ‘influence’ mixed up… as the governement owns 25.1 % it is the largest shareholder.. ryanair is next with 25%….
if the government cannot influence business decision in the company then what is the use of retaining a sharholding in it??

@vkid wrote:

over exaggerated it is not. This is not a Clare/Limerick thing or about propping up SNN. People are complaining all along the West Coast. A job I was supposed to interview for today which would have involved a lot of travel, i’ve just been informed is on indefinite hold due to this. I’m currently unemployed as my job was moved to Dublin primarily because of better access to Europe where the company HQ is located. Dromoland Castle and Doonbeg Golf Course have just put on hold up to 75 million expansion plans on hold. This is very serious for the West Coast. It might not affect you but over exaggerated it it not.

The two projects put on hold are a publicity thing as far as I’m concerned. What’s wrong with you flying to Gatwick for your job instead of Heathrow. If it’s London related it’s just as quick, if you’re flying to Europe or transatlantic there’s loads of connections. In the end Aer Lingus will cave slightly and we could see flights from Shannon that stopover in Dublin on way to Heathrow.

@jdivision wrote:

The two projects put on hold are a publicity thing as far as I’m concerned. What’s wrong with you flying to Gatwick for your job instead of Heathrow. If it’s London related it’s just as quick, if you’re flying to Europe or transatlantic there’s loads of connections. In the end Aer Lingus will cave slightly and we could see flights from Shannon that stopover in Dublin on way to Heathrow.

Sorry to hear that Vikid.

Our airports are hugely vital to our local economies. Cork has been crying out for x-Atlantic flights for a very long time, but the change in direction by Aer Lingus will have wider connotations for all of the regions in time.

Does anyone get the sense that Aer Lingus are testing the ground before making a much graver announcement about the cessation of x-Atlantic flights.

When US troops pull out of Iraq it’ll have a far larger impact. 25 per cent of airport’s revenues afaik come from that. Sorry to hear about the job though.

I’ve always thought the approach taken by euro airport authorities to building air hubs might be a bit amiss.

Their approach is to base air hubs in some of the busiest airports serving some of the biggest cities in Europe (Heathrow – London, Frankfurt etc.) which means much or most of the capacity is going to/coming from the nearby population centre.

Surely, a better approach is to build an air hub at an airport with no large population centre to ‘hog’ the capacity? Shannon would be ideally suited to this role, both in terms of being low to medium traffic and in its geographical location.

Webers ‘Industrial Location Theory’ dictates that firms will locate at the median point between supply and demand.

That is why London Paris & FFM are the biggest hubs.

@PVC King wrote:

Webers ‘Industrial Location Theory’ dictates that firms will locate at the median point between supply and demand.

That is why London Paris & FFM are the biggest hubs.

Which, on routes between Western Europe and North America, would be Shannon.