Transatlantic Flights?

ravendude · 30-12-2010 11:59am #1

I remember hearing a couple of years ago that there would be transatlantic flights from Cork, - to Boston/NY.
The introduction of transatlantic flights would probably be the single biggest boost to the economy in Cork, ( it's realy not about going on holidays ).
Surely, having to drive a couple of hours on downright dangerous roads from Shannon must put foreign investment off locating in Cork.
Just wondering if anyone has heard anything about this?
AFAIK there is no technical reason that there can't be transatlantic flights from Cork, - Airbuses and Boeing 757s can easily land and take off from Cork, no need for Jumbos/747s for a 5 hour flight.
Clearly, it must be down to the spineless local politicians who are loo lazy to give a damn.
Transatlantic connections would be a huge boost for the local economy in attracting business to the area, - I'm surprised it isn't on the agenda more.
Imagine the benefit to the area, if business people could arrive from the US and be in the office in a matter of 20 minutes or so from the airport. I can hardly think of another thing that would benefit the area so much, and that's not to mention the tourism benefits.

IMO, its definitely an issue worth raising with local representatives on the doorsteps in the forthcoming elections, so I would urge you all to do so!

Owen · 30-12-2010 6:31pm

Probably more down to the exhorbitant fees airlines are charged to use Cork since Fianna Failure left the Airport in significant debt despite promising not to do so. Plus the demand wouldn't be there either. They cut quite a lot of reasonably popular routes in Cork in the last 3 years due to profitability, even though they were making money, they weren't making enough. Making a transatlantic route from Cork profitable in the long term wouldn't be feasible IMHO.

ravendude · 30-12-2010 6:44pm

I don't buy the lack of demand thing, given the number of people I know that come and go to the US for business trips, holidays or coming back for xmas. I'm pretty sure there would be enough demand to justify twice weekly flights (eg. Mondays/Fridays). I personally know people that come over from the US with work that grumble about the lack of accessibility of Cork; they would almost certainly be over more often were it more accessible.

Knock airport AFAIK has regular flights to JFK, so if that non-entity can sustain it, I'd be pretty sure Cork could. Also, hops could be done via Shannon and Dublin for efficiency to fill up with passengers, - this already happens between Shannon and Dublin.
Anyway, it's surprising none of the airlines have tried it out the routes even as a feeler exercise.
The fees thing might be an issue, but IMO are unlikely to be a major barrier, - there's lots of other seemingly quieter routes in and out of Cork as it is. It reeks of DAA internal politics to me, - with some vested interest politics contrary to the greater good at the core, perhaps with the intention of propping up the Shannon region.

Owen · 30-12-2010 6:54pm

Without trying to sound like a cock, it doesn't matter if you think there's demand - there's not. Shannon, with the new Limerick Tunnel is a little over 80 minutes away now from the Commons Road, and if the NRA ever stop playing with themselves and finish the Cork-Limerick Motorway, it'll be closer still.

Knock on the other hand is bandit territory. They're miles away from anyone. Which is why Knock is handy for those living in the arsehole of nowhere, Leitrim, Sligo, Donegal, Mayo, etc. Those people still need to travel, and Shannon/Dublin is too far.

I spent quite a of time beating a Grob 115 off runway 17/35 in Cork Airport and asked the same questions you did, and it is down to demand, route long term viability, and the outrageous prices Cork Airport charges airlines to use the facilities compared to others in the Country.

If you were an Airline, and decided you wanted to run an Irish-American route, where would you setup? Shannon, which is close to Cork, Galway, Kerry, Limerick, Clare, etc, which is inexpensive, and has American pre-clearance there already ... or Cork. Which has less geographical capture, requires anyone wanting to go to the airport to deal with City traffic, has much more expensive operating costs, suffers with bad fog and crosswinds due to the stupidity of building an airport on a hill and doesn't have pre-screening, or the guarantee of long term passenger commitment.

If Ryanair can't keep flights from Cork-Lodz when half of Cork's population is Polis, how do you propose a Cork-America route when the commercial advantages to opening one down here don't exist?

Outkast_IRE · 30-12-2010 7:08pm

PaintDoctor wrote: »

Without trying to sound like a cock, it doesn't matter if you think there's demand - there's not. Shannon, with the new Limerick Tunnel is a little over 80 minutes away now from the Commons Road, and if the NRA ever stop playing with themselves and finish the Cork-Limerick Motorway, it'll be closer still.

Knock on the other hand is bandit territory. They're miles away from anyone. Which is why Knock is handy for those living in the arsehole of nowhere, Leitrim, Sligo, Donegal, Mayo, etc. Those people still need to travel, and Shannon/Dublin is too far.

I spent quite a of time beating a Grob 115 off runway 17/35 in Cork Airport and asked the same questions you did, and it is down to demand, route long term viability, and the outrageous prices Cork Airport charges airlines to use the facilities compared to others in the Country.

If you were an Airline, and decided you wanted to run an Irish-American route, where would you setup? Shannon, which is close to Cork, Galway, Kerry, Limerick, Clare, etc, which is inexpensive, and has American pre-clearance there already ... or Cork. Which has less geographical capture, requires anyone wanting to go to the airport to deal with City traffic, has much more expensive operating costs, suffers with bad fog and crosswinds due to the stupidity of building an airport on a hill and doesn't have pre-screening, or the guarantee of long term passenger commitment.

If Ryanair can't keep flights from Cork-Lodz when half of Cork's population is Polis, how do you propose a Cork-America route when the commercial advantages to opening one down here don't exist?

Some good points there but i wouldnt use ryanair as an example of Keeping routes open , they shut down viable routes in countries all the time that turn a decent profit so that they can announce routes in another country and sell a load of seats and then do the same 6 months or a year later in another country.
Ryanair uses opening and closing of routes all the time as a way to forward their own agenda.

murphym7 · 31-12-2010 12:04pm

Having capacity to run twice weekly flights is not enough capacity to schedule a trans atlantic service. You are assuming that everyone is happy to travel on one day and all travel back on another day. For a transatlantic flight to be sucessful from Cork you need capacity for every second day at a minimum. As a business traveller myself I would not consider using Cork to get to the east coast of the states until there were flights ever second day, MINIMUM.

A lot of business travel needs to be flexable - I don't want to fly from Cork on a Monday and then come back through London or Shannon on a Thur because the flight from Cork is only twice a week.

Twice a week is fine for holiday/package destinations, not for a regular mixed tourist busiess destinaton.

A320 · 31-12-2010 1:28pm

ravendude wrote: »

Knock airport AFAIK has regular flights to JFK, so if that non-entity can sustain it, I'd be pretty sure Cork could.

No they're gona ages,globespan pulled out,not so long after they went bust,those flights originated from Glasgow and Liverpool and stopped over in Knock.

Due to Martin Cullen's Incompetence the airport is screwed as they are in debt,they can't entice an airline to offer a service with the prices,however I think it could work if they could offer reasonable pricing because the catchment area for cork has to be bigger than shannon,especially with the M8 places like North Tipp are within 80mins,so if the price is cheaper it could work but the reality is it won't due to the burden of debt

To be fair pre clearance is new enough to Shannon,it wouldn't bother me anyway,before there was pre clearance I never had a problem in the US with Emmigration/Customs

Cosmo Kramer · 31-12-2010 1:52pm

The carriers who would have the most suitable aircraft to possibly operate such a route (Continental and Delta) are already at Shannon. Why would they dilute their operations there by going to Cork also?

The market isn't there for flights from both and Shannon is geographically far better positioned in terms of catchment area. It is also well set up in terms of customs etc for US flights which Cork isn't.

It won't happen anytime soon. Cork Airport is a backwater in national aviation terms because of geography - its useless to 80% of the population of the country, fine for european regional routes in and out of the city and county but the population of Cork alone cannot sustain transatlantic flights.

keithclancy · 31-12-2010 11:49pm

AFAIK 747's can land and Takeoff from Cork airport, just not with a full tank of fuel.

Owen · 31-12-2010 11:53pm

They can. Cork has previously had one on 17/35 before for some marketing spiel one of the Airlines did at one point. Memory's flaky, but one definitely landed.

keithclancy · 01-01-2011 2:14am

PaintDoctor wrote: »

They can. Cork has previously had one on 17/35 before for some marketing spiel one of the Airlines did at one point. Memory's flaky, but one definitely landed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sean_cronin/5187778098/

murphym7 · 01-01-2011 11:08am

PaintDoctor wrote: »

They can. Cork has previously had one on 17/35 before for some marketing spiel one of the Airlines did at one point. Memory's flaky, but one definitely landed.

That was an Australian drinks industry junket I believe - in and out on same day back, to UK.

I am open to correction, but no 747 would be able to take off with the weight required to get accross the atlantic.

Pablo Escobar · 05-01-2011 11:13am

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

It won't happen anytime soon. Cork Airport is a backwater in national aviation terms because of geography - its useless to 80% of the population of the country, fine for european regional routes in and out of the city and county but the population of Cork alone cannot sustain transatlantic flights.

So basically what you're saying is 20% of the countries population can easily access Cork Airport. By that reasoning, what percentage can easily access Shannon?

I know this is a primitive method, but take the 3 counties Cork, Kerry and Waterford, the population is almost 800,000. 500,000 coming from Cork which is the main point here. Then you take, Glaway, Clare and Limerick and the population is only just over 500,000. A backwater?......Hardly. Also, looking further afield is pointless as I drove Athlone to Cork, within the speedlimit in a little over 2 hours last month.

SeaFields · 05-01-2011 5:00pm

A lot of people here focusing on how the transatlanic flights out of Cork would benefit Irish people...

Look the other way tho. Kerry has a massive American tourist market. If the Cork to Macroom room was upgraded to a dual carriageway / motorway* the journey from Cork Airport to Killarney would be less than an hour I reckon. A very marketable quality. Shannon is over two hours to the main tourist hotspots in Kerry.

Just throwing another angle on it.

*yes i know....the country if fookin' broke.

highlydebased · 05-01-2011 5:02pm

A 747 would be horrendously uneconomical operating from Cork to USA so forget that. A 757 could operate to the East Coast no problem- even during winter (stronger headwinds). Ryan International were chartered to operate the JFK flight years ago (No relation to Ryanair)

Owen · 05-01-2011 5:07pm

SeaFields wrote: »

A lot of people here focusing on how the transatlanic flights out of Cork would benefit Irish people...

Look the other way tho. Kerry has a massive American tourist market. If the Cork to Macroom room was upgraded to a dual carriageway / motorway* the journey from Cork Airport to Killarney would be less than an hour I reckon. A very marketable quality. Shannon is over two hours to the main tourist hotspots in Kerry.

Just throwing another angle on it.

*yes i know....the country if fookin' broke.

Or alternatively, just extend Kerry Airport. Costs would be significantly less. Cork's just not viable for this sort of thing.

SeaFields · 05-01-2011 5:15pm

PaintDoctor wrote: »

Or alternatively, just extend Kerry Airport.

Or you could do that!

roundymac · 05-01-2011 11:58pm

747s operated chaters out of Cork for heineken cup rugby. I was on three flights with 747s, to Cardiff, Toulon, and Birmingham. The biggest aircraft that could operate non-stop to east coast would be a 757, but I suspect there may be weight restrictions. I flew Delta to JFK from Shannon in sept and that plane used every bit of runway to take off. Shannon's runway is 3200 metres long, Cork 2133, Kerry 2000, and Knock 2300. As far as I'm aware Globespan operated 737/700s out of Knock on some of their flights. The other problem with twice weekly flights is that you must accomadate a crew for at least 4 nights, thats fairly costly accomadation wise. The preclearence in Shannon makes the drive worthwhile, because you now clear customs as well, you arrive as a domestic flight in JFK. You just pick up your bags and walk out the door, in fact the people meeting you can do so at the baggage caurosel, plus the Shannon tunnel takes 20 minutes off your journey. While I would love to see Cork-JFK flights I really can't see them happening, if they could'nt operate them in the boom times I can't see them operating them these time's, unless of coarse it's, last person turn off the lights please.:(

A320 · 06-01-2011 9:55pm

roundymac wrote: »

The biggest aircraft that could operate non-stop to east coast would be a 757, but I suspect there may be weight restrictions.:(

Nope i believe a B767 would have no problem weight restriction wise,A330 would do the job also but would be restricted,I have seen an A330 take off from Runway 16 in Dublin for the US,quite possibley it was LAX and that runway is smaller than Cork

roundymac · 06-01-2011 10:45pm

Ok, I stand corrected, just been on Wikipedia and it states that a Boeing 767/200 can get airbourne with max take off weight (MTOW) in 1710m. However an A330 will need 2200m, therefore I suspect the A330 you saw was probley going via Shannon, all the Boston flights out of Shannon originate in Dublin. Also Aer Lingus used use A330s on the Dub-Malaga route in peak time, I think it was mondays. However none of that solves our problem about getting flights to the USA out of Cork, I hate to say it but i don't think I can see it happening in my lifetime, and I'm not that old.:rolleyes:

A320 · 06-01-2011 11:02pm

No the US A330 flight was definitely direct,the fact it wasn't probably fully loaded with cargo and pax was a help so more fuel was available for uplift,thus increasing range if they needed,it also works in reverse depending on the situation as lighter load will require less fuel

aircraft engines and take off distance performance vary all the time due to air density,temperature,wet/dry runway etc and uplift of fuel needed due to weight of pax,freight etc,it always varies.

the 2200M you read about for the A330 is probably a figure given for maximum take off weight (load with max allowable amount of fuel) and its not just about how big/small a runway is,the larger aircraft=larger wingspan and larger engine size might deceive into thinking you need a massive runway!

however cork doesnt help with the runway 35 end turntable,i dont think its suitable for an A330,there was an Airworthiness directive out a while back about turn radius for the NLG on the A330 and damage caused to frequent tight turning.

roundymac · 06-01-2011 11:13pm

Yeah the 2200 was for mtow, how long is runway 16 as a matter of interest, very hard to find any data on Irish airports.

A320 · 06-01-2011 11:22pm

16/34 is 2070M X 61M,cork is 2133M x 45M

roundymac · 07-01-2011 3:45pm

I flew to Birmingham on a monarch A330, can't remember whether it was 17 or 35 we used to take off. I know that 747 have used the turntable, I was on the Corseair 747/400 going to Birmingham the same year and it used the turntable.

A320 · 07-01-2011 5:58pm

Ya probably no problem with the turntable,but theres always things an aircraft doesn't like and as I far as I know the A330 steering collar doesn't like too many tight turns!!!!

zone 1 · 19-12-2014 3:40pm

many new routes of cork for 2015...

roundymac · 20-12-2014 1:12pm

Only one so far, Prague with CSK Czech Airlines, have lost a few though, Lisbon, Nice, with EI, and Fr have shortened some of their sun routes from 3 months down to 2.

Transatlantic Flights?

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