Shannon airport and Ryanair

phanley

So I'm sitting here in Shannon departure lounge, waiting to go back to Edinburgh where I'm a student. I can count 7 other non-staff passengers here too. Thats all just 7.

Should Shannon not just be handed over to Ryanair and have a stipulation that the current other airlines operating in it can just continue on as normal with no interference from Ryanair. Even if a trail period of 2-5 years was done and take it from there.

Now I'm well aware I don't have a clear view of the behind the scenes stuff etc.

I'm just throwing an idea out there and seeing what the opinion is of others.

Shannon would increase its numbers greatly. O'Leary would reduce the costs at shannon dramatically, its what he does best. Other airlines would be protected in some form of contract agreement. And of course it would create massive numbers of jobs and tourism for the west of Ireland.

As its stands this place is dying a slow and painful drawn out death.

If I am missing some huge issue that would cause this to be a bad idea, besides the obvious crap that you endure on a ryanair flight/booking, I'm sorry!

questionmark?

Your right in your observation. Shannon airport is basically dead and on life support. I would say the only thing keeping it open is the huge amount of US army personal that pass through it and the associated charges for landing.

Let ryanair take out a lease on the place they cant make it any worse than what it is at the moment. The west has no hub that it needs. Flying into Dublin when you want to holiday in galway or north Kerry is a pain in the arse when you consider our non existent public transport.

Ireland should have Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports with maybe Waterford as a regional hib for business. Kerry, Knock and Donegal are pointless tbh. Take the airports out of the control of the DAA and let them be run privately and let us have some competition. Wouldnt you love to see Shannon being run by Ryanair competing against the DAA in dublin airport.

Melion

Id be worried because there is no flight to Edinburgh this evening from SNN

Its a joke of an airport, i used to work there and you could see this happening years ago. Its only a matter of time until Continental and Delta pull out of there altogether, Aer Lingus simply dont want to be there so that leaves a handful of Ryanair flights and the Troop flights.

erictheviking1

That would probably work. They could advertise their flights as being to Dublin Shannon.:D

Gerone71

I wouldn't mind some other institution taking charge of SNN but not FR. I wouldn't trust O'Leary to run it fairly. I can see him charging an arm and a leg for short term car parking and screwing the likes of Delta in airport fees.

Cosmo Kramer

phanley wrote: »

If I am missing some huge issue that would cause this to be a bad idea, besides the obvious crap that you endure on a ryanair flight/booking, I'm sorry!

O'Leary was basically given the keys to Shannon back around 2004/2005 when he set up the base. He couldn't make it work, lost his company millions and that's half the reason the airport is where it is now with passenger numbers plummeting.

The huge issue that you are missing is that O'Leary would have absolutely no interest in taking over Shannon Airport as neither he nor anyone else would be able to make any money from it.

westerlywonder

Its not just services at the airport that need a new lease of life. I used to use shannon regularly as it used to be fairly handy to get there from galway. Now just one public service remains a bus eireann coach that takes anywhere from 2 to 3 hours, because they feel the same service should call into gort/ennis/calrecastle and where ever esle between ignoring the newly built motorway. I think a more appropriate service would be to let the direct Galway-Limerick service have one stop at the airport...
I relied on the buseireann time table the last time i tried to get to shannon, but when it took an extra hour to get there i missed my flight!
Why would i then go back to shannon when i can get to dublin airport from galway quicker and cheaper with either city link or go bus???
And often avail of better fares and routes from Dublin!!

phanley

Gerone71 wrote: »

I wouldn't mind some other institution taking charge of SNN but not FR. I wouldn't trust O'Leary to run it fairly. I can see him charging an arm and a leg for short term car parking and screwing the likes of Delta in airport fees.

Well I mean obviously there would need to be some sort of protection put in place for it to be in anyway fair to other airlines. Because yes Ryanair would screw them to the point of having to pull out.

It's sure a pitty that theres not more flights to the states there because of the pre-clearance available

Clareboy

The problem is that we now have too many airports in this country. Portugal has 4 international airports. Ireland has 9.

Clareboy

westerlywonder wrote: »

Its not just services at the airport that need a new lease of life. I used to use shannon regularly as it used to be fairly handy to get there from galway. Now just one public service remains a bus eireann coach that takes anywhere from 2 to 3 hours, because they feel the same service should call into gort/ennis/calrecastle and where ever esle between ignoring the newly built motorway. I think a more appropriate service would be to let the direct Galway-Limerick service have one stop at the airport...
I relied on the buseireann time table the last time i tried to get to shannon, but when it took an extra hour to get there i missed my flight!
Why would i then go back to shannon when i can get to dublin airport from galway quicker and cheaper with either city link or go bus???
And often avail of better fares and routes from Dublin!!

Bus Eireann provide an excellent hourly service between Limerick and Galway via Shannon Airport. I used it for 4 years when I attended college in Galway and the bus was almost always on time. Are you suggesting that the residents of Clarecastle, Ennis and Gort be deprived of a bus service? Bus Eireann route 51 takes less than 2 hours to travel from Galway to Shannon Airport.

westerlywonder

i'm not sure when you used the service last clareboy and i'm not suggesting that a service should not be provided to those on the old N18 route obviously there is a demand there so it should.
BUs eireann have now two hourly services that go from galway to Limerick, one direct that uses the new motorway and takes less than 80mins.
The other is the old N18 route, which is the one which stops in shannon, the last time i took this service was in feb and it took 3hours just to reach shannon, one hour after the timetable suggested!!
My point was not the actual service but why would one use Shannon airport now from galway when there are multiple direct hourly services to dublin airport which takes 2 and a half hours and is cheaper.
However if bus eireann added shannon to its non stop service to Limerick it would once again be an option once again for anyone in galway, at present its not.

Clareboy

westerlywonder wrote: »

i'm not sure when you used the service last clareboy and i'm not suggesting that a service should not be provided to those on the old N18 route obviously there is a demand there so it should.
BUs eireann have now two hourly services that go from galway to Limerick, one direct that uses the new motorway and takes less than 80mins.
The other is the old N18 route, which is the one which stops in shannon, the last time i took this service was in feb and it took 3hours just to reach shannon, one hour after the timetable suggested!!
My point was not the actual service but why would one use Shannon airport now from galway when there are multiple direct hourly services to dublin airport which takes 2 and a half hours and is cheaper.
However if bus eireann added shannon to its non stop service to Limerick it would once again be an option once again for anyone in galway, at present its not.

Point taken. Then you are lucky to be living in Galway, where you have a choice of bus services to Dublin.

questionmark?

Clareboy wrote: »

The problem is that we now have too many airports in this country. Portugal has 4 international airports. Ireland has 9.

Dublin, Cork, Shannon, and Knock(kind of) are the international ones. Waterford claim international as they have a flight to the UK and Kerry(a shed with a landing strip) have a route to France. Where the feck are the other "international airports in the republic?

Clareboy

questionmark? wrote: »

Dublin, Cork, Shannon, and Knock(kind of) are the international ones. Waterford claim international as they have a flight to the UK and Kerry(a shed with a landing strip) have a route to France. Where the feck are the other "international airports in the republic?

I meant the island of Ireland! What about Galway, Derry and Belfast?

number10a

Clareboy wrote: »

I meant the island of Ireland! What about Galway, Derry and Belfast?

You kinda answered your own question there. We live on a small island and we need to get off it somehow. The Portugeuse can drive/get the train to Spain, their nearest neighbour. We can't drive to our nearest neighbour and ferries are scandallously dear, so there's a large demand for international flights in proportion to our population.

Any airport in Ireland is effectively international if it has more than one route. And with the motorways now finished, I realistically cannot see any domestic routes surviving any longer, apart from Dublin-Cork and possibly Dublin-Donegal. So, soon all of our airports will most likely be international and we'll have no domestic ones.

Edit: Just did a bit of Googling and if you compare London and Paris, you'll see how being on an island makes a huge difference. London's airports handle 127m passengers a year, Paris's handle 87m. So Ireland, being even more isolated than the UK in comparison to the rest of Europe, will always have a disproportionate number of international flights.

finbarrk

Scheduled destinations from Shannon.
Birmingham,
Boston,
Bristol,
Edinburgh,
Fuerteventura,
Glasgow,
Lanzarote,
Las Palmas,
Liverpool,
London Gatwick,
London Heathrow,
London Stansted,
Malaga,
Manchester,
Nantes,
New York JFK,
New York Newark,
Paris CDG,
Tenerife,
Toronto,
Wroclaw.

Thats not too bad for a Mickey Mouse place.

Clareboy

finbarrk wrote: »

Scheduled destinations from Shannon.
Birmingham,
Boston,
Bristol,
Edinburgh,
Fuerteventura,
Glasgow,
Lanzarote,
Las Palmas,
Liverpool,
London Gatwick,
London Heathrow,
London Stansted,
Malaga,
Manchester,
Nantes,
New York JFK,
New York Newark,
Paris CDG,
Tenerife,
Toronto,
Wroclaw.

Thats not too bad for a Mickey Mouse place.

There would be a lot more scheduled flights from Shannon if we did not have so many airports in the country.

finbarrk

But it's still not as bad as some posters are making it out to be.

johnam

Clareboy wrote: »

The problem is that we now have too many airports in this country. Portugal has 4 international airports. Ireland has 9.

Portugal is on the continent. So people can use trains or cars to get around. I can't imagine many people fly between Portugal and Spain. We are an island. To get to our nearest neighbour, we need to fly, or waste a day on a ferry. Yes we do have too many airports, but that is not Shannon's problem. Even if Galway, Knock or Farranfore were not in existence Shannon would have a huge problem surviving. Dublin is not too far from any point in the country, and with the larger population close by and the consequent larger range of destinations available it will always have an advantage. Saying that though, Shannon does have a purpose, and needs to be protected. Shannon has the longest runway in Ireland meaning it can handle any size plane that want to use it, this makes it ideal for cargo, both big and small. Shannon should be a cargo hub, with passenger traffic taking second place. Shannon is little over 2.5 hours from Dublin, 2 hours to Cork, 1 hour to Galway, and 20 minutes to Limerick. Surely that is not too far for cargo to be transported. If Shannon could market itself better as a cargo hub, then the revenue from this could be used to offset the passenger rates that it charges, making it more attractive for European short haul airlines, and a few transatlantic flights. I am from Ennis, (15 mins from Shannon) and while I use Shannon 3 or 4 times a year to travel,(on the few direct to destination flights it offers) I would prefer to spend 2.5 hours on a motorway driving to Dublin, than face a drive on a motorway on the continent after my flight because I was dropped in some obscure airport miles from anywhere by Ryanair or any other budget airline.

Clareboy

johnam wrote: »

Portugal is on the continent. So people can use trains or cars to get around. I can't imagine many people fly between Portugal and Spain. We are an island. To get to our nearest neighbour, we need to fly, or waste a day on a ferry. Yes we do have too many airports, but that is not Shannon's problem. Even if Galway, Knock or Farranfore were not in existence Shannon would have a huge problem surviving. Dublin is not too far from any point in the country, and with the larger population close by and the consequent larger range of destinations available it will always have an advantage. Saying that though, Shannon does have a purpose, and needs to be protected. Shannon has the longest runway in Ireland meaning it can handle any size plane that want to use it, this makes it ideal for cargo, both big and small. Shannon should be a cargo hub, with passenger traffic taking second place. Shannon is little over 2.5 hours from Dublin, 2 hours to Cork, 1 hour to Galway, and 20 minutes to Limerick. Surely that is not too far for cargo to be transported. If Shannon could market itself better as a cargo hub, then the revenue from this could be used to offset the passenger rates that it charges, making it more attractive for European short haul airlines, and a few transatlantic flights. I am from Ennis, (15 mins from Shannon) and while I use Shannon 3 or 4 times a year to travel,(on the few direct to destination flights it offers) I would prefer to spend 2.5 hours on a motorway driving to Dublin, than face a drive on a motorway on the continent after my flight because I was dropped in some obscure airport miles from anywhere by Ryanair or any other budget airline.

As a public transport user, I would much prefer to fly from Shannon than to have to face the pain of bus and train to Dublin Airport. From my own experience, the airports used by Ryanair have public transport links to the nearest city.

stevielenihan

Clareboy wrote: »

As a public transport user, I would much prefer to fly from Shannon than to have to face the pain of bus and train to Dublin Airport. From my own experience, the airports used by Ryanair have public transport links to the nearest city.

Has shannon traffic still callposed? Will there be any new routes added bfore 2012?