dublin airport terminal

I agree with everthing that you say as things stand; however there is terminal capacity for 30m pax in the existing terminal and roughly the same again with Terminal 2; the choices for DAA is lose money operating both or mothball one or other terminal as either has independent excess capacity or do what Schipol has done and build an important hub from a City without the population base to justify the routes they have based on population.

The cancelation of the Third Runway at Heathrow has BA looking to Madrid to build capacity; CDG is a nightmare and Frankfurt too far East for trans-atlantic. DAA have little to lose drawing up a list of cities in the Americas with flights only to say London and Paris and targeting airlines that redistribute the majority of passengers on these flights upon landing beyond London or Paris. It has to be worth some research if it were to work it would put the capacity in place to justify the planned second runway; as it stands Dublin has terminal capacity for 50-60m pax and 1 runway a situation that ensures that passengers at Dublin will have a very comfortable passenger environment for the forseeable future and that DAA have a strong business case to give free landing charges to cut underlying loses without it being considered loss leading.

I agree with all the positives you have listed but would add two further points; firstly London Gatwick LGW flew 31m pax in 2007 from a single runway; excluding Virgin’s holiday flights the vast bulk of these were on short haul and medium haul routes. On that basis a second runway will not be required for another 50% passenger growth or say 15 years taking 2.5% pax growth unless new passenger growth and resulting revenue streams are generated through new initiatives. Secondly Dublin Airport already flies many widebody aircraft such as the Airbus A330 which is equivelent to a Boeing 777; historically IE also flew 747 or the largest civilian aircraft other than the A380 which is not an aircraft that will fly anything other than major hubs where landing slots are an issue and or soverign wealth fund owned airlines being crass; you would anticipate that this will continue for the forseable future.

With current excess terminal capacity standing at least 19m pax; revenue growth howsoever acheived must be the only priority of the DAA; as they now have a customer experience to rival the best in terms of terminal capacity per passenger. Looking at Schipol being above Frankfurt and Hong Kong in terms of passenger numbers it does indicate it can be done; no doubt the Schipol model relies heavily on duty free to compete on terminal charges. The pre-clearance into the US is a real edge; US immigration are almost too good at their job in terms of passenger experience and the ability to land in a domestic terminal as BA have done with their London City via Shannon to New York flight is pure gold to those where time is the key driver.

The right time to be buying land if there is an operational need for it; why IE’s 747’s historically flew to Shannon en route to the US is becoming clearer to me. Amazing the DAA never considered building just an extension as opposed to the more controversial second runway. They should clearly extend the existing one as it appears that IE have only one long haul supplier to chose from; not the best scenario when negotiating fleet enhancement.

With the road to St Margarets and Lispopple put through short a underpass the costs of a direct elongation would be pretty small; in contrast the benefits accruing from at least 2 daily Asian Hub flights with particular reference to the spin-off benefits for the E-Commerce sector would be immense in terms of daily air-freight options to the Worlds two largest air-freight hubs; not to mention direct flights to two of the World’s largest and growing financial centres and only one change for Aus/NZ.

Typical naughties overlook the obvious

I may be wrong but you imagine that health and safety would dictate that there would be some form of ‘sterilised area’ at the end of a runway in case in the event of an aborted take off the plane skids off the runway. They may still need to acquire some land and certainly put the road at the end into an underpass. In the greater scheme of things such costs would be de minimus.

In terms of construction disturbance there would be some impacts when both surfaces were merged but you would imagine that when the final ‘joining up’ was conducted that it could be phased and done out of hours i.e. after the last flight at night i.e. 1am and before the first i.e. 5am that gives a 4 hour window.

Maybe it isn’t required but I am always wary of going from the particular to the general. Better if your example of Gatwick is best practice and a small cost if it isn’t. Little projects like this are pure gold, little cost and massive return; if you had daily flights to Singapore and Hong Kong that alone would deliver close to 0.5m passenger a year. For people going to Aus/NZ the change from 3 flights to 2 would be some progress not to mention not having to change and pay £41 in landing charges to use LHR coming in from Asia.

I forgot about the connection through Abu Dhabi; given the choice you’d fly Hong Kong or Singapore anytime far more flights to be connected with if yours is late.