The growing lack of choice in Dublin airport

maynooth_rules

Every couple of months Ryanair are cutting their flights from Dublin.
Aer Lingus are loss making at the moment and who knows what might happen there.
BMI cut the number of flights to Heathrow
Malev pull out of Dublin airport.
Collapse of Budget (which I am sure will have a spin off on flights in the summer)
There seems to be very very little good news for the Irish travellers recently. Plus the fact that Ryanair are going to up their prices shortly. Anyone else get the feeling that Terminal 2 will be a white elephant as long as a ten euro tax and high charges are placed on travellers?

sitstill

Absolutely. Our salaries are going down but the cost of travel is going up. People will definitely be travelling less.

Savman

Been like that for years now. It's a poorly managed facility IMHO.

munchkin_utd

maynooth_rules wrote: »

Every couple of months Ryanair are cutting their flights from Dublin.
Aer Lingus are loss making at the moment and who knows what might happen there.
BMI cut the number of flights to Heathrow
Malev pull out of Dublin airport.
Collapse of Budget (which I am sure will have a spin off on flights in the summer)
There seems to be very very little good news for the Irish travellers recently. Plus the fact that Ryanair are going to up their prices shortly. Anyone else get the feeling that Terminal 2 will be a white elephant as long as a ten euro tax and high charges are placed on travellers?

The 10 euro tax is a red herring if ever there was.
I'll look at it from the point of view of someone abroad.

If you visit Ireland you really have to dip into your savings and a tenner either way is a drop in the ocean.
A tenner wouldnt get you a couple of pints in manys a pub in Dublin.
I was looking for car hire for 3 weeks in the summer and couldnt get anything much under a thousand for a small car (and public transport is crap if you want to enjoy the countryside )
Evening meals in Ireland are set with the assumption that you are out for an occassion. If you just want a spot of simple cheap grub after a day sight seeing, there isnt anything except supermacs.
I am extremely reluctant to recommend Ireland as a holiday destination to people in Germany simply because its so expensive once you get there.

So an extra tenner either way is the least of your worries!!

If Ireland wants to boost its number of visitors/ plane loading % / routes viable then unfortunately its not the airlines that need to get cheaper. Its the tourism industry APART from the airlines that are the problem in getting visitors.

ArmaniJeanss

munchkin_utd wrote: »

The 10 euro tax is a red herring if ever there was.

I think the €10 is a biggie as its unfortunately tipped the cost of a lot of the cheaper flights over the pyschologically important €100 mark.
(Now its by no means the only factor in breaching this €100 mark, theres also the €5 online checkfee, various credit card charges etc, its just the straw which might be breaking the aircamels back).
It just becomes a harder sell for say, a gang of French lads/lasses organising a weekend away. Someone suggests Dublin, flights for €90, sounds good... flights for €100, mmmm, lets just go to Nice instead.

Just my experience trying to organise reverse trips from Dublin to various points abroad for my mates, the €100 barrier seems important.

Su Campu

armaniTShirts wrote: »

I think the €10 is a biggie as its unfortunately tipped the cost of a lot of the cheaper flights over the pyschologically important €100 mark.
(Now its by no means the only factor in breaching this €100 mark, theres also the €5 online checkfee, various credit card charges etc, its just the straw which might be breaking the aircamels back).
It just becomes a harder sell for say, a gang of French lads/lasses organising a weekend away. Someone suggests Dublin, flights for €90, sounds good... flights for €100, mmmm, lets just go to Nice instead.

Just my experience trying to organise reverse trips from Dublin to various points abroad for my mates, the €100 barrier seems important.

Yes, on the online check-in fees - what's the legal standing of airlines such as Ryanair charging for online check-in when they forced it on us and don't offer an alternative? They went the online route I'm sure to save costs....so where's that being passed onto the customer? It costs them nothing for us to check in online....it should cost us nothing too.

bongi69

Su Campu wrote: »

Yes, on the online check-in fees - what's the legal standing of airlines such as Ryanair charging for online check-in when they forced it on us and don't offer an alternative? They went the online route I'm sure to save costs....so where's that being passed onto the customer? It costs them nothing for us to check in online....it should cost us nothing too.

The same way there should be a viable alternative to the M50 toll bridge so one can avoid it without going too much out of ones way?

No one from any government agency will touch Ryanair. They'll threaten to pull routes from KIR so that they can be left alone to overcharge their customers

AfterDusk

Why is another thread on the Aviation forum turning into another Ryanair bashing one? This thread is about Dublin Airport, not individual airlines! :rolleyes:

Barname

The DAA have proven themselves to be incapable.

Despite their MONOPOLY and guaranteed income streams they have landed themselves in a financial mess of their own making.

Their arrogance is astounding, then again, this is Ireland and they are a branch of FF

Danbo!

neil2304 wrote: »

Why is another thread on the Aviation forum turning into another Ryanair bashing one? This thread is about Dublin Airport, not individual airlines! :rolleyes:

Tbh, it probably shouldn't even be in this forum. Travel/politics/somewhere??

Although I do agree, while nice, Terminal 2 is very unnecessary.

C'mon daa, get the second runway in and lets steal some Heathrow/Manchester traffic!!

Dacian

Well if the RE operation as Aer Lingus Regional goes well DUB will get passengers that normally would have flown from Northern UK to London. Thus we could see an increase in longhaul traffic. MAN has longhaul routes so a bit harder to entice passengers from there.

Don't forget the while T2 may be too big now,it is designed to last a few decades. T1 has been inadequate for at least 8 years now.

Correct planning means planning for 10-15 years into the future not just next year.........

pclancy

neil2304 wrote: »

Why is another thread on the Aviation forum turning into another Ryanair bashing one? This thread is about Dublin Airport, not individual airlines! :rolleyes:

I don't see any airline bashing here except for one person complaining about on-line checkin fees which is hardly "bashing"?

Davidth88

neil2304 wrote: »

Why is another thread on the Aviation forum turning into another Ryanair bashing one? This thread is about Dublin Airport, not individual airlines! :rolleyes:

I have never seen any Ryanair bashing on this forum per se .

Now as far as the OP's point is concerned.

I think it should be a real worry. I wasn't aware of Malev pulling out thats a shame , but recently we did lose BA to Gatwick ( ok a couple of years ago now ) .

I would like to think that EI's new marketing campaign of advertising Dublin as a gateway to Europe is actually a great idea. The advantages EI have are things like the INS here , and of course the geographic position . But it depends on the US market picking up , and the stupid decisions by the US like charging tourists isn't going to help there much.

I have read that EI's new policy is not a ' race to the bottom ' , but is more of a hub idea , which is great news IMO , I truly hope it pays off. They need a USP to seperate themselves in the marketplace.

DAA need to attract some more airlines in ,I would like to see for example Iberia( BA ) come in ( with it's connections to South America ) , also Emirates with it's huge world wide hub in Dubai, I was slightly surprised when Ei pulled the Dubai route , I know they had low load factors , was this because they were offering a poor service to a destination that has one of the best service airlines serving it ?

The airport has suffered very badly from the way it's been run , but you have to wonder how much is that political , having cronies who know nothing about the business appointed the board etc, having to cowtow to the unions on every turn , can't be easy. It must be frustrating .

Really they needed a second runway years ago , and a second terminal .

T2 is badly needed , anyone who travels through Dublin regularly can see that , the A gates are horrible and cramped ( try getting a seat in that roundy bit at a busy time ... impossible ) , the B gates are showing their age for sure, the D gates , don't get me started ..... Now I agree T2 is too big , too fancy and possibly in the wrong place.

For people connecting at DUB it's horrible , you have to walk right through the terminal , up a narrow corridor and in through the side of security to be presented with another queue, this hopefully will be addressed in T2 where this will actually be thought through . Presently I would say it would be easier at peak times for connecting customers to actually exit to landside and back in .

PILOT

ALso not forgetting the void in the market left by Flyglobespan. Hamilton and Vancouver gone.

I think a year round service to Malta and Cyprus are needed. Cyprus Airways have a double daily A330 from LHR. IM sure they could get a high load factor using a A320 three times weekly to PFO or LCA from dublin.

Also there was talk of PIA starting a service from Dublin this summer. Never materialised?

Just my opinion.....

donkey balls

lads the problem being is we are a small island 5-6mil people flying to the likes of south america&asia direct will never happen in my opinion.
i worked for a very large airline were we feed into hubs in the uk&europe and many other countries ops were the same as they would not have the capacity/load factors to have direct flights.
its known in the industry as the hub&spoke system small acft feed into the hub were the larger acft are and can be filled.

Su Campu

I'm not too well up on airline economics but i would have thought EI would do fairly well with an Aussie route via Dubai? Not daily, but a couple of times a week maybe would get the loads required. Dubai's a popular destination, both for business and recreation, and you've got tonnes of flights a day from several UK airports. I'd say a good percentage of the pax on those routes are from here, so there could be an opportunity for EI to pinch some market share. And then you've got the many thousands making the trek to Australia, so with the two there might be something in it?

Then again, what would I know. I'm sure if it were viable then they'd already be doing it! :rolleyes: Etihad do offfer it, so maybe EI have missed the boat....or plane?

PILOT

the system of Hub and spoke is the way forward for aviation. I believe EI are also seeing that people dont think of DUB as a european transit hub,

There is word that EI are joining an alliance. I believe Star Alliance are most likely. It makes the most sense as Star have many destinations which EI would like to serve but capacity wasn't there. ANA, asiana and Lufthansa and Singapore would help EI alot!!!

This would also be a reason for BMI cutting frequency in DUB ( They would loose their competative advantage over EI as many of BD's passengers are transitting with Star Alliance)

BuffyBot

You won't see EI going to Australia anytime soon. A good discussion here from a few months ago. I read somewhere today that it's something like 58 people a day heading down that way they currently handle: not near enough to warrant even thinking of running their own flight. I believe Mueller wants to partner with someone and feed people for Oz through a European hub: I'd imagine more selling/codesharing of BA/Qantas to Oz flights via LHR and making them bookable via aerlingus.com would be likely.

Certainly they won't be joining any alliance immediatey: Mueller himself has said that Ryanair's shareholding blocks it in the short term, but in the longer term it's inevitable. Star does seem the likely one.

donkey balls

just another point an airline cannot overnight say lets go to OZ or some other countrys airport,you have to agree slot times which FBO offers the best service, ground handling has to be put in place, hotels for crews and line maintenance agreements signed off.
then in the case of pax flts you have morketting to be put in place:D