Waterford Airport.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121112669#Comment_121112669

....its been a while since ive had my head checked, but i can confirm, the greens will be well up on my ballot paper, i openly accept their awfulness, but shur....

Valhalla90

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121117422#Comment_121117422

Guess you also love traveling up to DUB for your flights?

Deiseen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121117422#Comment_121117422

Usually people who notice awful behaviour reward the party in question by not voting for them again.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121117844#Comment_121117844

..id crawl it if i could, carrying my bike on my back!

...again, i just cant see waterford being a viable airport at the moment, its just too risky for airlines, cargo, maybe, but for passengers....

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121118521#Comment_121118521

do we really have alternatives folks, really!

take a good listen to this, if you think sf are a good alternative.....

https://player.fm/series/irish-times-inside-politics/sinn-fein-have-pissed-a-lot-of-people-off-aoife-moore-on-the-struggle-to-write-about-irelands-biggest-party

....western democracies are currently in a lot of trouble, with no real alternatives....

Deiseen

No we don't have good alternatives but don't vote for people who have proven themselves to be clowns.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121120743#Comment_121120743

....so what are the alternatives?

914

The basic fact of this matter, no non Waterford sitting minister is going to provide money to Waterford airport when it hasn't had a commercial airline since 2016/17.

Yes the argument can be made build it and they will come, but no minister is going to buy into that.

The question has to be, what is the airport doing to attract the likes of emerald airlines?

What are our local TDs doing to get government to support an airline like emerald airlines operating out of Waterford?

Can we apply for some sort of EU PSO regional funding to try and attract a regional airline into Waterford?

There is no runway extension happening anytime soon unless we find a sugar daddy in Waterford therefore we need to look at someone establishing a commercial service.

Basing an aircraft is too costly so it would need to be a drop in service initially.

road_high

Yes I think if they could get a smaller carrier back as before it would strengthen the case enormously. As it is the state have the perfect exude not to invest anything as “no commercial flights”

Valhalla90

Well our Green TD is not making a sound suprise suprise. He probably fully supports the region not having an airport and its population forced to drive to Dublin & Cork airports. The man is useless. His seat is definitely gone next GE.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121122471#Comment_121122471

ah yea, id say marc is toast alright, the greens will more than likely lose big time, but if people think theres gonna be a mass exodus of support for ffg, they gonna get a big surprise!

south

Apparently there's a board meeting this afternoon.

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121129844#Comment_121129844

Probably say the lads from Galway are still in the game and that the private money is secure but yet a business plan still won't be sent to government!

Valhalla90

Amazing how WAT was doing well years ago when Aer Arann was there while still not able to accommodate the bigger aircraft’s. Go to present day and the country is awash with money yet they won’t support it. It’s a combination of a few things. Greed from Dublin & Cork airports, they view the South East as their catchment area so WAT threatens that. The green agenda from Eamonn Ryan. He doesn’t want anything that’s not a bicycle. Time for our 3 TDs now to come together and get this sorted. I left Marc out as I have zero faith in him for anything Waterford related. Useless representative.

hardybuck

The Comers are very quiet. They seem to be the only lads who are saying nothing. Strange one.

Gardner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121122471#Comment_121122471

The absolute thrash he does be sprouting about climate change and all that shite on twitter is remarkable. There was one Green TD blaming the Libya floods on climate change. The absolute numpty never took into consideration that a dam collapsed due to defects which have been highlighted to the Government for years and was, the main contributory factor in the floods. In follow up comments, he dismissed the dam bursting and just said climate change yada yada yada.

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121132138#Comment_121132138

Agreed it's a bit of a joke to see aer Lingus "regional" services operate from Dublin to the likes of Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh etc.

What would be nice is to see government put supports in place to enable aer Lingus regional operate from the likes of Waterford, Kerry, Knock, Donegal etc

Regional routes from regional airports.

Aer Arann was very successful from Waterford, Stobart Air killed Aer Arann for their own gain.

A national brand such as aer Lingus regional (emerald airlines) would be a success in regional airports but sure let's just thrown them into Dublin!

Valhalla90

DUB is an absolute horrible experience to fly from. Eamonn Ryan’s argument is there is too many airports on the island. The are all located along the western and Northern part. Donegal,Derry,Knock,Shannon,Kerry. Again the South East looses out to DUB and Cork regions and politics.

Valhalla90

Galway & Waterford airports were very busy with Aer Arann. I don’t know I sometimes wonder if the airport had been built in somewhere like Slieverue would we have more political will. Maybe because the airport is located in Waterford that’s the issue. Either way Ryan needs to be gone before anything positive can happen at WAT.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121133422#Comment_121133422

...i wonder will there be a heave before the next election, the green party badly needs a new leader, and a new direction....

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121133402#Comment_121133402

Stobart owned Southend airport, when they took over aer Arann, they dropped the Luton service and replaced it with Southend to have their first passenger services at Southend airport.

Direct from Galway to Luton was dropped and replaced with Galway to Waterford and then onto Southend.

This killed the Galway service and also killed the Waterford service as Southend was at the wrong side of London and had poor connections into London.

Switching to Southend saw a massive drop in numbers compared to Luton but stobart kept running the Southend service in order to try and attract other passenger airlines into Southend.

Once stobart had passenger services up and running at Southend they the attracted EasyJet and had little to no interest in having its own airline and stobart air finally ceased to exist after running a failed service for a number of years.

Deise Vu

I was on a sponsored table for a PD (!!!) fundraiser back in the day when the airport came up for discussion with the minor political jobsworth assigned to our table and he literally dismissed it out of hand as “being in the wrong place.” He felt it should have been built in South Kilkenny or Wexford, both coincidentally 5 seat constituencies.

Needless to say he had no clue that the airport was started by contributions from Waterford businesses and Waterford peoples.

It reminded me starkly of when lotto funds were allocated to 8 regional sports centres. The current RSC already had the sports hall, the pitch and putt and some pitches, paid for by voluntary deduction from payroll by Waterford workers. The lotto funds allocated were £1.5m to seven locations and £0.5M to Waterford as it was “already well developed “.

They don’t even sugar coat it. Waterford as a 4 seat constituency does not rate. They could give less of a **** if we slipped into the sea ( the not The Wild Atlantic Way) tomorrow.

In the 33 iterations of the Dail, there would have been, at a guess, 650 Ministers and Taoisigh. How many were representing Waterford, which comprises roughly 2.5% of the population giving us a fair share equal to 16? Yep, Deasy and Cullen are the only 2. It tells you all you need to know.

Kilkenny36

The guy is right though, the Airport is in the wrong location, If you are going to say its a regional airport for the southeast then it is.- The trouble is the Airport was planned as an Airport for Waterford, good location on the outskirts of the city, only 10 minutes and your in the city. But if your anywhere in west Waterford your probably happier to go to Cork, If your anywhere north of Kilkenny your probably happy to go to Dublin. If it is an airport for the South East it should be located around Knocktopher close to the M9. Less than 30 Minutes from Waterford City, 20 Minutes from Kilkenny City, 40 Minutes from South Tipp, 30 Minutes from Carlow and an hour from Wexford Town. Close to the Waterford-Dublin train line. That would be a well connected Airport for Waterford and the entire south east. It's in the wrong location now. Nobody except the people living in the city and south Kilkenny would find it convenient.

Bards

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154232#Comment_121154232

Could say the same for Dublin Airport that is in the wrong location that is is meant to serve the whole country and not just Dublin .. Should have been built near kildare so it's closer to all the main cities and on the Intercity mainline so easy access by rail to the majority of the country's residents

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154232#Comment_121154232

You do realise that the area you suggested is too high above sea level and you would be more impacted by fog than the airports current location?

914

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154232#Comment_121154232

Also to take your point on convenience.

North Kilkenny, castlecomer as an example is approx 1hr 25mins to Dublin airport and 1hr 5 minutes to Waterford airport.

M9 the whole way to Waterford, city bypassed, outer ring road dual carriageway, no N7, no M50, no parking where a shuttle bus is required, no walking to the ends of the airport to get to your gate, no large security queues.

In that scenario Waterford is still more convenient, it is why people in Waterford choose cork over Dublin airport, you can get to either but cork is less hassle as an airport.

I know to some people that won't matter but to a lot of people it does.

Anyone from north Kilkenny, west Waterford could arrive at Waterford airport an hour before their flight and be at their boarding gate in 20 mins if even, in Dublin you need to a arrive a good 2 hours before hand, and you have so much more to factor in such as N7, M50, parking, security etc.

If Waterford wasn't convenient then why has is previously had over 100k passengers through its doors when using turbo prior aircraft?

Kilkenny36

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154292#Comment_121154292

Yes but most people fly from Dublin Airport, Waterford Airport is trying to compete with Dublin Airport. Plus Dublin is the primary destination for people arriving into Ireland. It's the centre of Business.

PTH2009

One thing going for Waterford- Dublin Airport is regular bus journeys are all times daily

The last bus for Waterford-Cork is like 8pm

road_high

I don’t think the location is the issue - not now with the M9 and N25. The airport seemed to be doing fairly well in the 00’s, post recession and up to when it closed for commercial flights. They had a decent management team that drifted away since then. Of course there’s been very little government support since and Dublin/Cork are happy to let it fizzle out. Local business interests appear quite supportive but prob not enough

Bards

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154600#Comment_121154600

So is knocktopher, same for Cork airport

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154232#Comment_121154232

He was probably just a clueless political hanger-on from an ignominious failure of a political party. He was wrong.

Waterford is a city. It is also the major population centre in the SE. This fact seems to upset people in largely rural counties like Kilkenny and Wexford. In addition to Cork airport being badly sited as regards fog, there is also a fuel issue for aircraft in that Waterford airport is closer to Europe and the UK than Cork airport. The improved transport infrastructure makes Waterford a better option for airline operators in terms of fuel savings.

Regards...jmcc