[Article] Seaplane service from Galway due in September

munchkin_utd

Ingenious!
Zero landing charges and deposits passengers right to the city centre!

A NEW air link is to be established between Galway and Dublin using seaplanes. The announcement by Harbour Flights Ireland comes less than a week after Aer Arann said it was pulling the plug on its three daily flights between Dublin and Galway as State subsidies were being withdrawn.

The Government had been providing almost €1 million a year under the public service obligation scheme for flights between Dublin and Galway but that funding is being discontinued from June.

The company behind the project hopes to have the service in place by September, with flights operating from the Poolbeg marina on the Liffey to Galway harbour.

Full Article:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0413/1224294553855.html

mgmt

The simple ideas are always the best.

Here's the test flight landing


http://www.irishships.com/robbie_dubport_various.html

Not that big of a plane

Cookie_Monster

mgmt wrote: »

Not that big of a plane

indeed, 3 passengers maybe?
hardly economically viable in the long run

Neworder79

6 seat Cessna 206 to start with plans for 19 seat Twin Otters in the future according to to their site. 8 legs per day winter and 14 summer (daylight operations).

They say Vancouver has similar climate to ours and they operate 100 flights a day from Vancouver mainland to Vancouver Island. I'd imagine this would be popular with the business community who would pay a premium for city centre to city centre service if it's reliable.

DHC-6 Twin Otter


360 view of Twin Otter cabin on this webpage:
http://www.harbour-air.com/fleet.php

Irish Site
http://www.harbourflights.com/seaplane-service-information/aircraft-operations/

Vancouver site:
http://www.harbour-air.com/

Cookie_Monster

Nice looking plane

rainbowdash

The train starts from €10 each way, and you can work on your laptop and take phone calls while travelling. I can't see this happening. Even if I dreamt up such an idea the time to start it is the summer with more tourists and longer days.

irlrobins

Doomed to fail I think. Tickets will be high, so unlikely to get full loads regularly. Might work better as a charter...

dowlingm

Two significant differences with Victoria-Vancouver though
1. Victoria's bigger (330k pop metro area) and is a Provincial capital
2. There are no land routes between them - ferry or air are the only options.

If they go with a Twin Otter I'd hope it's one of the new Viking built series 400s with the modern avionic fit and not a second hand one beaten up by life in northern Canada

munchkin_utd

irlrobins wrote: »

Doomed to fail I think. Tickets will be high, so unlikely to get full loads regularly. Might work better as a charter...

You would wonder though.

If it were to do stops en route like to clonmacnoise on some of the dublin/ galway trips then you might have a reasonable trade from (well off) tourists who also arent bothering to hire a car.
Also, it looks like a very comfortable day trip will be possible from Dublin to the arann islands via galway harbour which is currently not possible due to the idiotic idea to have the Arann Islands air link departing from Indreabhain in the depths of conemara rather than galway (city) airport.

positron

Nice simple enough idea, however, these tiny planes are not that fast, are they?

Cesna 206's maximum speed is about 280 kmph, where as Aer Arran's ATR-42 (I think that's what they were using?) have an economical crusing speed of 450 kpmh or so, if I remember correctly.

Thanks to Google, flight distance from Dublin to Galway is just 187 kms, so is that an hour on Cesna 206, 30 mins for ATR. Of course, getting into and out of airports and city takes a lot longer.. so there might be something in this alright..!

robd

munchkin_utd wrote: »

Ingenious!
Zero landing charges and deposits passengers right to the city centre!


Full Article:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0413/1224294553855.html

Interesting one to follow.

Glad to hear subsidies are being pulled on the various domestic routes. They were pretty unbelievable in the first place given the size of the country, and the fact that the state owns two public transport companies servicing similar areas (Bus Eireann, Irish Rail). Then there's the environmental concerns.

mrsdewinter

Saw something about this in the Connacht Sentinel. It would be great if it went ahead: being able to fly to Galway without negotiating Dublin Airport would be fantastic. Why has nobody thought of doing this before now?

GerardKeating

mrsdewinter wrote: »

Saw something about this in the Connacht Sentinel. It would be great if it went ahead: being able to fly to Galway without negotiating Dublin Airport would be fantastic. Why has nobody thought of doing this before now?

Good idea, unless you want to go further than Dublin, no real connection options in Dublin port.

L1011

munchkin_utd wrote: »

You would wonder though.

If it were to do stops en route like to clonmacnoise on some of the dublin/ galway trips then you might have a reasonable trade from (well off) tourists who also arent bothering to hire a car.
Also, it looks like a very comfortable day trip will be possible from Dublin to the arann islands via galway harbour which is currently not possible due to the idiotic idea to have the Arann Islands air link departing from Indreabhain in the depths of conemara rather than galway (city) airport.

It'd still be far faster to fly to Galway, get a bus and fly from Connemara than take the boat from Galway Harbour.

Although Connemara Airport was gombeenism at its best and Aer Arann Islands should never have left Galway - they flew from Carnmore/Galway airport and Oranmore Air Corps base before it.

dowlingm

positron wrote: »

Nice simple enough idea, however, these tiny planes are not that fast, are they?

Cesna 206's maximum speed is about 280 kmph, where as Aer Arran's ATR-42 (I think that's what they were using?) have an economical crusing speed of 450 kpmh or so, if I remember correctly.

The Cessna/Twotter will probably be at a lower cruise alt so less time in climb plus it won't have to wait in a hold for runway at DUB or GWY

Fog might be an issue though - what's visibility like at Dublin and Galway harbours? Dublin port traffic might get in the way too.

Neworder79

Although Connemara Airport was gombeenism at its best and Aer Arann Islands should never have left Galway - they flew from Carnmore/Galway airport and Oranmore Air Corps base before it.

The proposed City and Inishmore seaports will bring Galways count of landing strips to 9!

mikemac

I remember reading about this last year. An Taisce were objecting

He said that the effect of the service on salmon migration patterns on the Corrib must be looked at, while he also warned that seaplanes could have a negative impact on the Claddagh swans.

“While we must admire the confidence of the proposers of this business venture, it must be noted that we do not believe that such a service can survive in the current difficult financial climate.

Fair enough on the first point but when did An Taisce become experts and predict a venture isn't worth even trying

I like that charter idea to Clonmacnoise, you'd generate some business that way

marathont

Surely these planes cant land or take off in windy\choppy weather, making it too unreliable?