Waterford Airport.

Deise Vu

Is the Govt not committed to part funding the runway expansion once private investment was found?

On the other hand, there seems to have been zero follow up since the initial Comer announcement. Im beginning to get a tad nervous that the Cork/ Shannon lobby has struck again. Probably too much to expect that a big project in the SE would get the go ahead if half a job might have been threatened in Cork when you consider where the Taoiseach is from.

Valhalla90

Galway airport is completely closed as a airport! Same crap coming from Cork & Dublin about not needing critical infrastructure in the South East again. WAT can be a successful airport and of course it will take from DUB & ORK that’s why we are hearing negative statements again as usual!

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119965942#Comment_119965942

Why the surprise? This funding like in recent years has only been for airports which are operating commerical airlines.

Waterford does not have a commerical so why would be obtain finding here?

dzilla

I think Matts update a few weeks ago about Ryanair committing to the airport is a bit premature.

It's great for the airport to get soundbites etc and become relevant in the news but to be honest, MOL said that it would depend on Waterford having a low cost base. I don't know much about it but he airport might not be looking at a low-cost base so until that is known Ryanair has not really committed anything.

JCX BXC

MOL's comments about running services from Waterford are about as plausible as his comments about running services from Cork Airports old terminal. (Which might I add is being torn down soon).

Bards

If MOL thinks he can use Waterford as a bargaining chip when it comes to DAA he will.. Waterford is about the same distance from Dublin as Hahn is from Frankfurt... Dublin(Waterford) anyone... Place your bets

Cosmo Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119968784#Comment_119968784

The DAA would openly laugh in his face at that one.

Nobody is going to fly to an airport in the arse end of Waterford to get to Dublin. Sure Belfast is about as close. Most people going to Waterford probably wouldn't fly there in practice, other than those coming from the London area, which sounds like it would be the only destination if this thing was ever to somehow happen.

Bards

1 million population within 1 hours drive of Waterford.. Dublin Airport car parks are at peak capacity and no further car parks allowed.. M50 is a car park at peak hours with traffic almost at a standstill... Summer was chaotic in Dublin Airport.. We heard all the naysayers before with the M9 and it's the same record being played again.. People will go where they are assured of arriving on time for their flight with no hassle

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119969795#Comment_119969795

1 million! The entire South East has a population of 450k. I’d love to know where you are getting the other 550k from?

Bards

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970119#Comment_119970119

Who said anything about only the S.E - Actually geographically the S.E has a population of 600K - (Tipperary South was removed for Political reasons to benefit the Mid-West region - again gerrymandering of figures to make SE look smaller than it is) - 1 hour of waterford would bring you right up to Naas and south Kildare.

hardybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119967228#Comment_119967228

I'm not surprised at all, nor do I think it's unjustified.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970165#Comment_119970165

In what world can you drive from Waterford airport to Naas in 1 hour?? It’s 150km away. Even Carlow is a massive stretch to do in one hour, nevermind “South Kildare”. The entire population of Tipperary is 170k, so adding South Tipp doesn’t get you close to 600k for the South East. I don’t think you can drive to anywhere outside the South East in under one hour from Waterford Airport, aside from a handful of towns in South Tipp.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119969795#Comment_119969795

A third of the total carpark capacity is currently closed as the operator shut down. It'll be back. That handled more traffic than there is now, pre covid

Dunmoreroader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970843#Comment_119970843

1 hour 1 minute from the Kildare border with Carlow to Waterford Airport. Not sure what average speed Google Maps uses to calculate times, presumably the speed limit for each stretch which none of us keep to so, yes, comfortably 1 hour from South Kildare to Waterford Airport. QED.

Dunmoreroader

1 hour 13minutes Co. Wicklow - Waterford Airport. About 9 minutes more if you take the coast road/ M11.

Dunmoreroader

1 hour 8 minutes to Laois! This is fun.

Dunmoreroader

1 hour 6 minutes to Cork!! Ooch, they won't like that.

Dunmoreroader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970843#Comment_119970843

Not only does an hour and a half get you to Naas, it'll get you to Dublin. I've hit the Red Cow in well under 1 1/2 hours from Rice Bridge but don't tell the cops!

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119971294#Comment_119971294

That’s great but the Op said within an hour of Waterford Airport, not 90 minutes. There is no way you can drive from Waterford Airport to Naas in under an hour without significantly breaking the speeding laws.

Cosmo Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119969795#Comment_119969795

Again, even if this was an anyways viable strategy (it isn't), there's already an existing airport with a fully jet capable runway that's the same distance from Dublin as Waterford is that and it has plenty of capacity to deal with any overflow from Dublin. But there's no demand for that and there wouldn't be from Waterford either.

Incidentally if ye are checking distances to airports you should check which is the closest airport to Lismore, County Waterford (clue - it's not Waterford)!

road_high

Theres no doubt that if there were good flight options from Waterford you would draw people from further up like Kildare, laois, Wicklow etc-the journey to Dublin airport is not very appealing.

The real ridiculousness is having three airports in Munster all within each others small catchments and not the real numbers to sustain what they aspire to do.

Where are things anyhow in regards to funding WAT runway extension? Things appear to gave gone quiet

road_high

https://www.wlrfm.com/news/waterford-airport-no-contract-with-investors-signed-but-works-to-start-on-runway-in-march-281064

BBM77

I am starting to miss the whole point of this discussion. If the runway is expanded and a service to London is restored like there used to be, which was viable. The infrastructure will be in place for future growth and other uses. What is the problem with that? Who gives a sh*$e if it takes passengers from Cork?

fricatus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119972134#Comment_119972134

We could play this same with Millstreet Co Cork... clue: the nearest airport is not Cork! Waterford is a long and thin county, and Lismore being at the far end of it from the airport is not really relevant to the viability or otherwise of WAT. What's much more relevant is that the road infrastructure connecting WAT to population centres like Kilkenny, Carlow and Wexford is now very good.

Cosmo Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119975702#Comment_119975702

It depends what you mean by viable. If you charge an airline nothing to run a route to Luton a few days a week from the airport the route will likely be viable for the airline. But the airport will lose millions a year - who's picking up the tab for that?

Commercial airports cost a lot to run and with the best will in the world the Irish Government already spends tens of millions a year propping up all the existing airports in the state that aren't Dublin without adding another to the list, particularly one that's in a region that is already very well connected by road to existing facilities and is unlikely to accommodate more than a couple hundred thousand passengers a year at the absolute most.

BBM77

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119977104#Comment_119977104

There is very little public transport that is viable. If you run public transport on financial viability you would be closing most of the city bus routes outside Dublin and probably some in Dublin. The government subsidise these things because of the greater economic benefit and they make the money back through taxing it. If there is a model of subsidising regional airports in this country, Waterford and the South East has every right to get a share of it. It never fails to amaze me how there is a constant different rule when it comes to Waterford. Just looked at your profile. You’re the very person who said in the past about Galway “Why the airport wasn't expanded years ago to accommodate bigger jets is beyond me…”. Shannon and Knock are closer to Galway than Dublin or Cork is to Waterford. Different rules apply to Galway apparently, why?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2056145800/galway-airport-to-lose-pso-subsidies/p1

Cosmo Kramer

Jeez, quoting a post from 11 years ago is quite something! FWIW Galway had an interesting strategic location to the east of the city with a huge catchment across the west and midlands and was very well-connected to three motorways. So a commercial airport could potentially have thrived there with the right investment and without needing much, if any, government subsidy. It would probably have blown Knock out of the water if it had ever been expanded and would have massively threatened Shannon too.

So, from a purely vested pro-Galway Airport POV (and I'm not from Galway!) it could have been worth investing in by someone like the Comers and probably much more so than Waterford, but it would have been at the expense of other airports. Looking back it it 11 years later and looking at how Knock has thrived in the mean time, it's maybe for the best that it didn't happen and the airport was left to go to the wall.

Covidhaveago

Waterford airport is now majority owned by billionaires. Why would taxpayers subsidise their business? Presumably the Comer brothers have put together a business plan for their investment that isn’t reliant on hand outs?

Fairplay to the Comers if they establish the airport as a freight hub and/or get commercial flights back, but it’s their investment and their risk, not sure why the State is expected to subsidise these wealthy individuals.

Cosmo Kramer

Kerry Airport was and I think still is privately owned by Saudi billionaires but nonetheless receives significant state funding. Wherever there are potential votes there will be calls for subsidies, and regional airports are always used as political footballs as necessary.

Covidhaveago

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119983876#Comment_119983876

A good argument to be made then that Kerry shouldn’t receive any further supports outside of the PSO. Though, with the M21 in the pipeline, even the case for the PSO remaining indefinitely looks weak.