Waterford Airport.

BBM77

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119983156#Comment_119983156

Your double standards are quite something. So, Galway who already has airports close by should have expanded. And probably would have “blown Knock out of the water …and massively threatened Shannon too”. But Waterford who is further away from airports should not expand. Pure gibberish and proves exactly the different rules I was talking about.

hardybuck

Jeez all this fascination with distance Waterford might be from other airports and different parts of the country is an absolute dose. What other places might or might not be getting is also extremely petty.

By the sounds of things Waterford Airport are finalising a new business case to reflect the fact that the runway extension is going to cost far more than previously envisaged. It also sounds like the Comer deal isn't actually finalised yet - and these are far more relevant to the future of the airport than how long it might take to drive from Tullamore or Enniscorty.

blackwhite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119966492#Comment_119966492

Sligo airport is a more like-for-like comparison. Has a rescue helicopter and some aero-club activities, but no commercial routes.

Also got zero funding.

azimuth17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119986400#Comment_119986400

In the 19th century towns and cities all over the country lobbied Dublin Castle for more soldiers and bigger garrisons in their area for the economic spin off. Any TD will tell you that Ireland is administered on the basis of who gets what with every one watching everyone else. I wish it were not like that, that we had a properly administered plan for the country, but anyone who lives in the south east will have seen power politics in action first hand. (University anyone?) Its the way we are, whether its dose (never heard that before) or not. Its fight your corner and dog eat dog. And by the way, I believe there is a lot more economic activity and more people in the south east than in SLigo or Donegal. I wish those area well, but in the heel of the hunt, if we are going to have an airport in Waterford with a rescue service and a flying school and a fair few cargo flights, it makes simple sense to have a proper runway.Why that possibility excites and attracts so much negative comment on this page from people obviously not from Waterford, is beyond me.

hardybuck

The airport will require the support of people from in the region, and further afield, if it is to survive. Quite a bit of the recent posts have been focusing on how long it'll take to get to the airport from places like Kildare.

Posters who seem to be quite clearly from the city also regularly focus their attention on what's happening in other places outside Waterford, often quite sour and negative posts.

Therefore it's not surprising that posters from outside the area are interested in this discussion.

Cosmo Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119985472#Comment_119985472

Waterford is welcome to expand, if it does so with private funding and subsequently continues to be privately funded to make up the inevitable financial shortfall caused by a lack of demand for it's services due to its hopeless location to the south of the city and in a region that is already very well connected by road to other facilities. Same as Galway would have been in that respect had someone invested in it at the time.

But there's extremely limited justification, if any, for government funding of an airport expansion in a location that has a two hour motorway link to the largest airport in the state - whether that's Galway Airport or Waterford. Which is what people seem to be asking for here - millions of government money for an airport that really isn't needed and few will use.

Dunmoreroader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119989549#Comment_119989549

I was clearly responding to the poster regarding Naas being within a catchment area for Waterford Airport. It is. I expanded that out to show where else can be included in its catchment - a lot more of the country than just the very narrowly defined Southeast.

People in the Southeast did support the airport in droves when we had commercial flights there to desirable UK locations and elsewhere, without any PSO subsidies.

Now the road infrastructure brings a lot more potential customers into its catchment, should commercial flights resume. Potential customers fed up with the ordeal now required to be endured in flying through Dublin Airport.

While the motorway to Dublin has made Dublin airport much more accessible for Southeasterners, it does also have lanes going in the opposite direction last time I looked, as do all of the other roads heading out of Waterford.

If I come across as sour or negative maybe its from observing decades of initiatives aimed at equitable regional development for the Southeast, particularly Waterford, strangled at birth by either vested interests elsewhere and/or the dead hand of our Dublincentric Civil Service.

Why the fcuk shouldn't I point out the travel times to Waterford Airport? It's not as if the posters on Boards are going to decide the viability of the runway extension or subsequent investment in commercial flights or whatever else is mooted for the airport. I expect those putting their money in to do due diligence rather than read cranky posts on Boards.

Christy Browne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119990064#Comment_119990064

€5 million is a grain of sand on the beach that is government spending, especially when it is to be matched by the local authorities and investors.

€5 million falls out of a Minister's pocket anytime they visit Dublin/Cork/Galway. This equating of anything to do with Waterford as 'parish pump', as if it's some boreen in the back arse of Connemara looking for airport funding is a joke. If anything, the South East is the worst serviced region in the country for air travel, with numerous large population centres currently slogging to Dublin at all hours of the night to catch early flights.

A small airport with flights to London from Ireland's 5th largest city would easily return €5 million to the economy within a few years.

BBM77

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119990064#Comment_119990064

Oh I get it, government money should not be spend on projects in Waterford.

Why were you arguing Galway airport should have expanded? Realistically that would have only happened with government money and you knew that when you wrote it. If Waterford can get a small amount from the government and at least try to make a success of its regional airport. What is wrong with that? Why the clear double double standards?

hardybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119990505#Comment_119990505

We can do without the Google Maps again for a long time now that you've done such a thorough job with it.

If the airport does reopen it'll require a lot more regional support than it got ever before to stay open. One of Kerry's London routes would get roughly the same number of passengers as Waterford got across all it's routes on it's busiest ever year.

Ultimately that's the decisive factor, not the Government or anything else. There is loads of unspent capital funding every year. This extension will get approved if whoever actually owns and runs the place these days can put together a reasonable business case to get approval for extra inflation related costs.

Cosmo Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119990680#Comment_119990680

It would be in the region of another 5 million a year, every year, to keep the place operating with commercial flights. Let's not pretend this is a one off funding request, it's an annual subsidy that's being sought here to operate an unnecessary unviable airport. It's madness.

If the Comers or the local rate payers or whoever want to waste their money on it year after year then fair enough, but wanting the public purse to pay for a white elephant airport given the level of infrastructure investment there has already been in the south east in the last 20 years really is quite something.

Dunmoreroader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119991867#Comment_119991867

I don't see the word Mods under your name, me bucko, so I'll post what I feel like within the rules of the forum thanks very much.

Dunmoreroader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119991867#Comment_119991867

I forgot Kerry.....bit of a stretch but you'd never know, yanks in London wanting to see the Ring of Kerry on Pattys Day, who'd normally fly into Dublin or some such. Who knows? 😉

Dunmoreroader

Just discovered the good people at SENSER had produced this study a few years back; http://www.senser.ie/resources/SENSER%20Estimating%20Airport%20Demand%20SC2%20Nov%202017.pdf

Population figures and therefore potential catchment numbers have only risen sharply since then.

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119991867#Comment_119991867

In 2007 Kerry airport had just over 300k passengers

In 2007 Waterford had just over 140k passengers.

Considering Waterford was running with turbo prop ATR72's with a costly regional airline compared to Kerry running RyanAir and PSO services to Dublin.

Waterford did not fair out to bad, had Waterford have been on the same par as Kerry, runway length, type of aircraft and destinations, who is to say we would not be handling similar passenger numbers?

azimuth17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119992088#Comment_119992088

Someone remind me of just how much debt was taken from Cork Airport and put on DAA balance sheet? (Cork Airport’s €200m debt is a “red herring” that has no impact on its day-to-day operations but which would be even greater today had the airport been responsible for it over the past number of years, rather than the DAA. Examiner) Waterford Airport never had a realistic chance of succeeding with turbo prop versus 737s with costs being divided by seat numbers. Again, if we are going to have an airport to facilitate the things that happen there at present then we should have a proper runway.Kerry and Knock both succeeded when they could access jet flights. Galway failed without them. If private investment is prepared to take the gamble on Waterford, then so be it. Why should that matter to the persistent voices posting here that just dont want an airport in Waterford at all?. Just do wonder how the airport might have progressed if it had had a 737 runway when Ryanair started there. Odds on they would still be there.

Christy Browne

Just to really put the 'road links to Dublin/Cork' argument to bed, here's the top 30 population centres in Ireland and their driving distance to the nearest airport with flights.

Amazingly, the only urban centres over 1.5 hours drive from an airport are all in the South East: Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford. Each of them would be far closer to Waterford Airport and bring them in line with the rest of the country. (Waterford: 10 mins, Kilkenny: 53 mins, Wexford: 1h 8 mins).

Carlow would only save about 10 mins travelling to Waterford Airport, while Clonmel would save about 20 mins.

Remind me how well served we are by Dublin and Cork Airports in the South East again?

hardybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119992211#Comment_119992211

Yeah and two years later Waterford’s numbers had held steady while Kerry's grew further to 426k. The likes of Knock are hitting about 800k a year also in the last full pre-Covid year.

It looks like that's the sort of benchmark to be aiming for, and therefore passenger numbers would need to treble or quadruple from the previous peaks for the operation to be viable. It'd be a huge shift but who knows as you say.

cal naughton

Is see the catchment area debate is still going on!

There could be a population of 5Million on the airports doorstep and it still wouldn't matter. If the comers get control it's for a property play.

Airport operators they are not!

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119993592#Comment_119993592

Again those two years after, Waterford was very limited due to the runway and airline, full length runway in place and the option of jet aircraft and things could be different.

Anyhow we can all argue all day if Waterford is viable or not or whether we have the population to support it and potential airlines.

Fact of the matter is, it is all irrelevant unless we have the runway in place.

Will we get the runway? I'm not so sure, business case has still yet to be sent into government, no word on contracts with the Galway lads.

No pun intended but it's all still up in the air.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119990505#Comment_119990505

I was responding to a poster who said that there is a population of 1 million within a 1 hour drive of Waterford airport, which is a nonsense, its not even half that. You then went off posting screenshots of how one can get the Naas in 90 minutes or how you can squeeze to an unpopulated Kildare county boundary on the M8 in just over an hour, all of which has nothing to do with the original claim.

Dunmoreroader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119993652#Comment_119993652

So what, they're going to build apartments along each side of the runway or knock through the fence to the business park and build more units on the airport land? If they wanted to diversify into redeveloping obsolete airports don't they have a handier candidate on their own doorstep?

cal naughton

The Galway airport is owned by the city and county councils who have been burned before when dealing with them so no chance they would sell.

Thankfully the councils realize that the airport is not commercially viable and there are plans for an industrial estate which is ideal for the growing medical device companies who are all based on the east side of the city.

Valhalla90

Any update on this never ending saga?

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120290506#Comment_120290506

Other then the fact the runway was to be started in Q1 of 2023 but any financial plan has yet to be submitted to government!

Bhoy1967

Any update on this - thought we were looking at March start and no sign of any movement yet?

PTH2009

Suppose us Waterford folk have the 'North Quays' and 'Walsh Park redevelopment' happening

We should be happy with what we got and not be mentioning anything more

Asdfgh2020

Is it a case of ‘build it and they will come’ ie an airline like Ryanair/Aer Lingus or wait for an airline to commit before commencing works…?

JCX BXC

No airline will ever commit, so if it's going to be built it'll be a build it and hope they come.

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120351143#Comment_120351143

Not financial plan sent to government as of yet, so very unlikely we even see any movement in Q2