Cork Transport

And from this morning’s quondam Cork Examiner:

01 February 2007

Flight change proves costly for passengers

I HAVE never been happy with Aer Lingus’ decision to stop operating the Dublin-Cork route as this makes travelling to and from Cork so much more difficult.

The airline’s decision to change its flight schedule from Düsseldorf to Dublin makes is virtually impossible to catch the latest Aer Arann flight from Dublin to Cork. Arriving in Dublin at 21:50 — 20 minutes later than before — makes it impossible to catch the 22:30 Aer Arann flight to Cork.

Since the price war only targets the budget traveller, the business passenger is completely left behind. It was the latter who paid airline profits before low-cost airlines arrived. Business people paid astronomical rates for flights, thus allowing the airlines to offer reasonable rates to leisure travellers.

Now we are faced with having to spend three days abroad for a one-day trip to Germany because of the lack of coordinated flight schedules. This is a disgrace. I hope Aer Lingus will reconsider its policy and accommodate those who cannot afford to spend hours, or even nights, at an airport just because they missed the last flight.

Stiofán Schmeitz

Finisk Bridge

Killeagh

Co Cork.

@jungle wrote:

It’s not as though Dublin is the only place you can connect when flying into Cork. Heathrow is obviously a possibility and you could always fly Cork-Amsterdam direct and hire a car. It would probably turn out faster than hanging round airports waiting for connections.

The one thing that is annoying with the connection in Dublin is that now that it’s Aer Arann and Ryanair on the route, you don’t get checked through.

BTW Aer Lingus have now started using the only airbridge at Cork Airport.

Hethrow was always a nightmare when trying to make connections to anywhere – especially if the conncetion time was anyway tight; Paris CDG was not too bad until they filled in the open-plan of the original airport with all sorts of security checks thus reducing mobility and customer flow within the airport; Amsterdam was not bad but Aer Lingus connections to Cork were never at the right time.; the Munich route to Cork has been killed off. Very soon, I expect that it will be a good deal easier to fly into Knock or Farranfore in Kerry from German destinations than into Cork.

Glad to hear that progress has been made with the one and only airbridge in Cork Airport. Its use by Aer Lingus must have engendeded the same amount of awe that such an event would have triggered in the upper stretches of the Limpopo. We are getting there……

@DubinCork wrote:

Our national airline does not fly from the second city to our capital.

Is Ryanair an option ?

Another example how Cork loses out be it North Ring road,Macroom By-pass,Sarsfield & Bandon road roundabouts,New Buses or feasibility for light rail,Airport Debt.Watching Eco Eye with Duncan Stewert the whole programme was about Dublin as usual and 5 seconds on Cork & Galway.Farcical.

Transport 21 does not deliver for Cork.

Since privatisation, Aer Lingus isn’t the national airline, their role is to make a profit.

In fact, their only internal route is Dublin-Shannon and this is just expeiency on their part because the stopover forces them to operate aircraft with otherwise empty seats.

@Praxiteles wrote:

Amsterdam was not bad but Aer Lingus connections to Cork were never at the right time.

They have a flight that arrives in Amsterdam at 9am. Aside from the immediate return flight, there’s also one back at 8:30pm four days a week. Short of multiple daily flights, you’re not going to get much better than that for connections.

Driving from Amsterdam, you could make Duesseldorf by midday (Give it an hour longer by train). Coming back, you could leave around 4:30 and make the evening flight. A bit short for a day-trip, but I can’t imagine connecting flights doing significantly better, even if their Duesseldorf-Dublin was earlier.

I’d agree that we need more direct flights to Germany. Unfortunately, Ryanair’s 737-800s and Aer Lingus’ A320s are too big and won’t be filled, while Aer Arann’s ATRs don’t really have the range. It would be nice to see an operator at the airport that used Fokker 100s or Embraer 195s, so that those routes that could support maybe 80-100 passengers could be given a chance.

Green light for €140m railway line

Saturday February 3rd 2007

PLANNERS have given the green light to what will be Ireland’s first new rail line in almost 100 years.

Transport Minister Martin Cullen is now set to sanction the €140m redevelopment of the Cork-Midleton line which in its first year of operation is expected to handle almost two million passengers.

When completed, the new rail line will provide services from Cork to Dunkettle, Carrigtwohill and Midleton.

Iarnrod Eireann has for years been planning the re-opening of the Cork-Midleton link which, while totally disused for the past 18 years, dates back to the Great Southern Railways era in 1860. It is now hoped the line could be operational by 2010 – though planning and consultative delays could push that date back.

The Cork-Midleton re-opening will involve the redevelopment of a 10km stretch of railway line.

Under the ambitious plan, two new stations will also be built at Carrigtwohill and Midleton.

Ralph Riegel

© Irish Independent
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & http://www.unison.ie/

@THE_Chris wrote:

2010 and it could slip???

I remember seeing a while ago it was to be up and running by 2008.

Doesnt surprise me one bit.

What are they playing at….. 2010? They can’t be serious. And forgive my ignorance, but I thought work had already started. They’ve been announcing it so much I just assumed work had got under way. What a disappointment!

Another announcement by the gov on the Midleton line. Cullen must have a sore jaw from his serial announcements of the same thing!
Meanwhile, I was in the city bus station recently and, having missed the bus to Little Island, I asked at the travel center when the Cobh train departed (which would allow me to alight at Little Island train station). I was not expecting to buy a ticket, but given that both Bus Eireann and Irish Rail are both part of CIE, I at least thought that they might have a timetable handy. Apparently not as I was informed that ‘we are totally different companies, so why would we have the the train timetable!’
With an attitude like that, such advanced notions of integrated ticketing and providing a unified urban transport system are, sadly, distant dreams.

@corcaighboy wrote:

I was informed that ‘we are totally different companies, so why would we have the the train timetable!’
With an attitude like that, such advanced notions of integrated ticketing and providing a unified urban transport system are, sadly, distant dreams.

and thats to Irish people, imagine what tourists are treated like – thats a serious serious problem. How much thinking does it take to stick up a few timetables around the place, it is supposed to be the flippin bus HUB (and i still maintain its a daft place for it, buses facing on to the wrong side of the road).

If thats true about 2010 instead of 2008 for Midleton then thats another kick in the teeth from Martin Cullen and FF. Only way is to tell all those propoective TD’s when they come to your door.

Perhaps they’re covering themselves for “lawsuit over the Glanmire road Rail Bridge”

@bosco wrote:

Did anyone notice the headline on the front of Saturday’s Evening Echo?

Something like “Drain south channel of Lee and put a LUAS in it”
… suggestion from Roger Flack in a speech at the Cork Chamber of Commerce do on Friday night.

Yep, Roger Flack had a Martin Luther King moment (I had a dream).
He proposes to cover the South channel of the Lee and run a Luas type light rail system to Ballincollig.
This will NEVER NEVER happen in Cork where he is pleading to a city management and many Councillors who don’t give a damm.:mad:
Roger Flack would be a kingpin in a progressive city such as New York, Berlin, Dublin, or Knock!! where they now have an International Airport while Cork still has a regional mentality (and a regional Airport)
😮 Remember the Cork Docklands redevelopment project “launched” in 2000?

@bunch wrote:

why would we drain the south channel of the lee to put in a luas? how about putting it at street level like its done in normal cities.

how about just getting on with it and just doing SOMETHING constructive (pardon the pun), calling on the government to do this and that and writing to the likes of bus eireann to say “we urge you to make the service better” will do nothing, just GET ON WITH IT.

– stop making endless plans
– get Docklands going with light rail/tram to go through it, carriages to be 2 storey like australia, german trains
– sarsfield and bandon flyover
– kent station FULL change around, fully integrated with moved bus station, just make the damn place into a 21st century building
– increase of bus fleet to have smaller more frequent buses in the inner city and suburbs
– at least tripling of buses to carrigaline and crosshaven, at least two an hour being express to cork not winding down a country road to douglas
– night links to ballincollig, mayfield, glanmire,douglas/carrigaline
– car pooling initiatives with in conjunction with the park and ride
– a bus service that goes from frankfield to the LINK road i.e. not driving into douglas traffic at peak hour in the mornings
– cork airport debt to be paid off as promised, plenty of funds for the NDP so obviously theres enough left for Seamus Brennans promise to be upheld (and a few airbridges to be thrown in out of the change)
– multi purpose 40,000 seater stadium at the docklands where the light rail / tram will let you off at the station next to it, U2 to be the first to play but only in support of John Spillane

its election time, theres a change in the air, just do it