Ryanair no-frills Terminal

jimmycrackcorm

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1811984&issue_id=15504

Ryanair brought journalists over to Germany to show them how they converted a hanger into a terminal for €10m. The DAA is proposing that they build dublins second terminal for hundreds of millions which we all will have to pay for.

While the DAA say you can't compare dublin with a smaller airport - I don't see why Ryanairs approach can't work here ( I don't mean converting a Hanger but building a simple terminal). Perhaps the DAA is confusing Terminal with Temple.

talkingclock

I can imagine how a "ryanair no frills terminal" looks like: like an empty warehouse but you pay 20 euro a chair for while you are waiting to get boarded...

dmeehan

talkingclock wrote:

I can imagine how a "ryanair no frills terminal" looks like: like an empty warehouse but you pay 20 euro a chair for while you are waiting to get boarded...

typical wisecracks expected when talking about ryanair :rolleyes:

the "ryanair" terminal in Hahn (its not actually owned by ryanair) does all that it needs to do: get passengers in and out of planes etc. while it is great to go through airports like the new terminal in cork, the same service can be achieved by using lower-cost terminals such as Frankfurt-Hahn etc.

Does anyone have passenger numbers for terminals such as HHN or ORK?

Chris_533976

Hahn is fine, went through it a year ago and its perfectly adequate, except for Departures which I found a little weird, simply because passport checking is in a weird place.

I'd still love to know how Cork managed to spend as much as they did, with the farcical results that they got for it.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Idbatterim

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=07&month=apr&story=gen-en-130407 "The Regulator has confirmed that the already high charges at Dublin airport will double because of current "developments” proposed by the Dublin Airport monopoly." What already high chares? they are way lower than id expect them to be, I constantly hear Dublin airport has the lowest charges for any major airport in Europe, is this not true? you only have to fly into or from England to see what high and rip off charges really are! I like MOL but i think there has to be a bit of a balance. Also havent the government approved plans to have the 3rd terminal as a private operation? Given that the terminal is only going to be for 15m passengers and the airport passenger numbers are growing at 2m p.a the new terminal will barely be finnished before they have to start all over again. Passenger numbers last year were 21.5 million, lets say they increase by 2 million pa over the next 2 years. By 2009 thats roughly 28 million passeners that T1 is going to be handling when T2 opens. We all know about the lack of forsight here, but shouldnt T2 atleast be able to accomodate 20 million passengers? Also the pathetic roads system around the airport is laughable, instead of having flyovers and underpasses, for a junction that isnt exactly the red cow, we have a signal controlled roundabout, pathetic!

jackofalltrades

While the DAA say you can't compare dublin with a smaller airport - I don't see why Ryanairs approach can't work here ( I don't mean converting a Hanger but building a simple terminal). Perhaps the DAA is confusing Terminal with Temple.

Using a converted hangar as a Terminal is OK in a regional airport with Ryanair, a no frills carrier as its main customer. But when it comes to an airport that serves a capital city and is the 9th busiest in Europe I think you need to spend a little more and getting something that we can be proud of and the will WOW customers. Remember its not just low fare paying customers that we are trying to attract to Ireland. And the cost of T2 is in line with Terminals at other European airports.

By all means I think we should build a basic as possible Terminal for Ryanair, provided that MOL is never given any press coverage ever again.:)

kleefarr

Sorry! But I saw the thread title and immediately thought..

Shed!

But after reading it I realise it'll maybe slightly bigger than that.

kleefarr

Chris_533976 wrote:

Hahn is fine, went through it a year ago and its perfectly adequate.

Agreed. I saw nothing wrong with it at all. Although it was about seven years ago since I was last through there. Only thing was, it was miles away from anywhere.

embraer170

Idbatterim wrote:

you only have to fly into or from England to see what high and rip off charges really are!

In England the government Air Passenger Duty may be ridiculous (and just doubled recently) but airport charges aren't always that bad.

kleefarr

And the amenities are generally very good.

Red Alert

Does anyone care about the state of a bus shelter? In an ideal world, you'd get on the plane, pay your fare to the driver and sit in a seat.

BendiBus

I'm hoping Dublin airport and the airlines serving it have a bit of ambition.

In particular I hope Aer Lingus is really trying to develop a long haul network in all directions, not just west to America and plans to use Dublin as a hub for transfers. Transfer passengers can and do consider their transfer airport when booking flights.

Look at all the Middle/Far East airports providing top quality airports and competing for Europe/Australia traffic.

A shed, while fine for Ryanair (and I'd be using it all the time) does not serve all requirements.

Franz Ferdinand

Yeah, we don't ALL want to travel cattle class.
We aren't all bleedin' back-packers and skangers.

If O'Leary wants that kind of terminal let him bugger off to Baldonnel or Weston or somewhere and build his sheep pen there.

I like comfort. I can afford it - and I"M WORTH IT.:p

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

MLM

Chris_533976 wrote:

Hahn is fine, went through it a year ago and its perfectly adequate, except for Departures which I found a little weird, simply because passport checking is in a weird place.

I'd still love to know how Cork managed to spend as much as they did, with the farcical results that they got for it.

As far as I know only 80 million euro was spent on the actual Terminal building in Cork. The remainder, 100 million or thereabouts, went into infrastructure. 80 million on an airport terminal is not extravagent. What is totally ridiculous is the fact that they wouldn't spend another 1.2 million for three extra airbridges.

markpb

Red Alert wrote:

Does anyone care about the state of a bus shelter? In an ideal world, you'd get on the plane, pay your fare to the driver and sit in a seat.

But back in reality airports are places where passengers spent an appreciable amount of time. For a two hour flight, you'll probably spent 2-4 hours in airports. For trans-at flights, you'll spent 4-6 hours in airports. If something goes wrong, you could spend far more. If you're transferring (which is probably pretty rare in Dublin but well worth promoting), you'll spend more time again.

Shops, restaurants, business lounges, economy lounges, proper facilites for families with babies as well as the general feel for the place (spaciousness, light, cleanliness) are important when you're in the same building for several hours.

For all this time, it's nice to have something better than a bare-facilities shed. I wouldn't advocate spending silly amounts of money but neither should we reject everything that isn't absolutely essential as money wasting.

In any event, I suspect MOL doesn't care about this issue all that much, as long as we're here discussing this, the Ryanair brand is firmly in our minds and that is a job well done.

antoinolachtnai

Do you not see the reason why you have to spend so long at the airport? It's so that you'll have more time to spend in the shops and so that the airport can charge the shops higher rent to pay for the oversized terminal.

The result is the very long walks you get to the gates.

By all means, have 'extras' at the airport, but why not keep all the facilities in separate, self-funding buildings on the landside, where they wouldn't have such an impact on customer charges?

Having an airport that is comfortable for use and for transfers has relatively little to do with the finishes you use and how much you spend, and an awful lot to do with how well you design it.

a.

Red Alert

The reason we all spend so long in airports is precisely because of their insistence on it, and sadly the airlines and government are complicit in it.

Calina

antoinolachtnai wrote:

.....The result is the very long walks you get to the gates....

Other airports manage not to inflict this on you. Terminal 2 in Paris CDG is a case in point - the gate is a two minute walk from check in most cases. Even T1 which is not such a great terminal (although it's improving) gets you from the plane to the exit in 5 minutes.

The long walks I think happen in Heathrow and Dublin because of a lack of joined up thinking and trying to fix things on the fly rather than standing back and looking very far forward into the future. T1 in Heathrow is a disaster in that it has extremely long walks but not much in the way of shopping. So I think that your theory isn't the whole story.

I think imaginative design has a lot to do with it.

Zoney

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Do you not see the reason why you have to spend so long at the airport? It's so that you'll have more time to spend in the shops and so that the airport can charge the shops higher rent to pay for the oversized terminal.

I've had to wait in airports with nothing but a café or two after security. I've been in major airports that have only a handful of shops (at least in the international building) - certainly they'd only have to keep people in the building 30 mins to have them visit all the shops.

I think it's over-cynical to suggest the shops are the priority - I think it is just that air travel is grossly inefficient, people end up stuck for hours at airports, and as a *result* it makes sense to have shops serving this captive market.

If a stricter line is taken on airlines compensating passengers for missed connections etc. - perhaps people won't arrange journeys with such long dwell times at airports between flights.

Chris_533976

If you want departures next to check-in, go to Kerry airport. They're right next to each other, to the point of literally being the door next to the check in desk.

Franz Ferdinand

markpb wrote:

In any event, I suspect MOL doesn't care about this issue all that much, as long as we're here discussing this, the Ryanair brand is firmly in our minds and that is a job well done.

You hit the nail bang on the head my friend.

tonc76

Calina wrote:

I think imaginative design has a lot to do with it.

Imaginative design and the implementation of it generally costs €€€€

Victor

Red Alert wrote:

Does anyone care about the state of a bus shelter? In an ideal world, you'd get on the plane, pay your fare to the driver and sit in a seat.

Then Anto stabs the pilot and flies the plane to Tallaght.

tonc76 wrote:

Imaginative design and the implementation of it generally costs €€€€

Quite the opposite.

Dublin has been added to on an ad-hoc basis, hey they even stuck the maintainence hangars next to the terminals. Properly laid out, an airport would have enough space for contemplated growth, based on 50 year projections, terminals (expandable on a modular basis) between the runways and space for 4-8 runways.

Look at Denver Airport

antoinolachtnai

tonc76 wrote:

Imaginative design and the implementation of it generally costs €€€€

Imaginative design is very cheap in the context of a EUR 500m project. You will get a lot of imaginative design for EUR 50m. Of course you need analysis and understanding to drive the imaginative process.

It doesn't cost any more to implement a good design than a bad design. You set a budget at the outset. It's just another constraint.

Dublin Airport is designed around retail. There is no question about this. Everything about it is oriented around retail. Delays in getting into the Arrivals? Because it's overcroweded with retail, making it impossible to split up the arrival gates.

Transfer facilities? No space for them, because the Departures area is packed with retail.

Long queues at entrance to airside - because you have to be screened before you enter the large, shared retail area. Remember, at peak time, a large proportion of the people in the queue to be screened have later flights and don't really need to be screened for another 45 minutes or longer, after the peak has passed.

That said, there is nothing wrong with retail. Retail, in the proper place, is great in an airport.

The new terminal for the A380's in CDG was specifically designed around retail (they wanted to have the gates within view of the retail stores, because research showed that travellers were unwilling to shop until they had been within sight of the gate).

I think the design in Kerry (and other places where the gate and the check-in are adjacent) is great!

Chris_533976

Kerry does need an expansion though, theres only about 1/2 the number of luggage trollies that are needed, and people cant physically fit into the baggage reclaim hall after getting off the flight, leaving people stranded in the rain.

tonc76

Victor wrote:

Quite the opposite.

Dublin has been added to on an ad-hoc basis, hey they even stuck the maintainence hangars next to the terminals. Properly laid out, an airport would have enough space for contemplated growth, based on 50 year projections, terminals (expandable on a modular basis) between the runways and space for 4-8 runways.

Look at Denver Airport

The fact of the matter is that we do not have the ability to turn back time and make everything right. DAA can only work with what is in place at the moment and try develop the airport site within the constraints already laid out.

When I said "Imaginative design and the implementation of it generally costs €€€€" I meant architects tend to try come up with innovative ideas to leave their mark on a project which tends to cost €€€€

antoinolachtnai

That is why we have people called 'managers' and 'cost accountants'. A building is a machine. It serves a function. You build it to serve that function, economically.

It could be that the function of the airport is to impress people when they land, and that's fair enough, but why load the cost of a cathedral on nonbelievers?

Calina

tonc76 wrote:

The fact of the matter is that we do not have the ability to turn back time and make everything right. DAA can only work with what is in place at the moment and try develop the airport site within the constraints already laid out.

When I said "Imaginative design and the implementation of it generally costs €€€€" I meant architects tend to try come up with innovative ideas to leave their mark on a project which tends to cost €€€€

I believe both Munich and Helsinki grasped nettles and built brand new airports and closed old, inadequate airports in the last twenty years. My view is that this could have been done in Dublin except they've built housing estates all over the perimetre of the city. But no one would have had the guts to do here because it's easier to spend loads of money over the long term just doing sticking plaster work than it is to budget up front for a major new development designed according to needs which although requiring a load of money up front probably costs less in the long term. Dublin Airport has been extended/had work done on it several times in the last ten years. It is disgraceful.

Anyway, the tendency in this country is to do as little as possible.

Imaginative design doesn't have to cost €€€€ if it's managed correctly. To imply otherwise is a cop out and we're damn good at it in this country.

Davidth88

Hi,

I have never been to Hahn , but if it's like the ' no-frills' terminal at CDG then it's just a block building with ' virtual ' gates where you get buses.

This MUST make the turnaround time longer , something I came across in Rome recently where my flight was delayed 40 mins because FCO ( Rome airport ) had run out of buses.

The critisism of T1 at LHR is reasonable , but think about it T1 I think was built in the early 70's , and the central area of LHR was built/designed just after the war !

As usual really the middle ground is about right , you want a terminal to be comfortable , easy to get to the aeroplanes, and preferably look nice ( and perhaps in this day and age be energy efficient )

T2 at Dublin to my mind is being built in the wrong place , arn't they knocking down half the new(ish ) C gates to fit it in ? Also I hope they are including the Metro stn in the price ?