Dublin Airport New Runway/Infrastructure.

Pygmie

I think that's quite a defeatist attitude. The problem isn't going to fix itself. Why not explore means of making flying more environmentally friendly, more economical, less wasteful, before raising caps.

dublin12367

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121914770#Comment_121914770

Look, if anything was ever going to be done it would have to be done at EU level and implemented across all EU airports. Not just one airport that handles 33 million passengers. Like the above poster stated, this is a Dublin airport infrastructure thread and environmental reasons alone is not enough to stop expansion at Dublin when it will just the move the emissions and routes to other eu airports. Dublin contributes a negligible amount in the bigger picture to climate change while contributing massively to the Irish economy and we would only be shooting ourselves in the foot limiting expansion as every other airports grow.

Time to grab every route, investment, and expansion while we can as there will be periods of time that won’t always be available as we’ve seen in the past.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915649#Comment_121915649

We're on an island without any rail links to our main trading partners.

That's what it's for.

Cookiemunster

Transport, power generation, heating, farming, heavy industry and maritime shipping are all larger polluters than aviation (2% of the worlds CO2 output). Grounding every plane on the planet will make no difference to the planets CO2 emissions problem. I have no idea why aviation gets such a hard time when as an industry it's one of the smaller sources of CO2 emissions.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915673#Comment_121915673

If the cap was more than generous, then passengers number would be nowhere near the cap. We live on an island where flying is the most efficient way of the two ways of getting off the island.

The other way is a highly polluting bunker fueled ferry.

Jinglejangle69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915699#Comment_121915699

That’s one simple percentage.

Try google aviations overall impact on the environment through emissions not just C02.

All these cheap stag weekends to Prague and weeks away in Lanzarote are hugely damaging to the environment and for what benefit to Ireland?

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915726#Comment_121915726

Maybe somebody should tell the Brits, the Germans, the Scandanavians, etc that they shouldn't be flying to these destinations (in far larger numbers than the Irish) too?

The idea that Irish aviation emissions even make a dent in world wide emissions is laughable.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915912#Comment_121915912

The cap is there because of ground transport issues to/from the airport, not for environmental reasons.

davetherave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915912#Comment_121915912

ttps://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2023-11-21/150/

A passenger cap of 32 million passengers per annum is currently in place at Dublin Airport. This passenger cap is a planning condition attached to planning permission granted for Terminal 2 (condition 3). The condition was put in place principally to limit the amount of traffic pressure on the access road infrastructure at Dublin Airport.

Karppi

The irony of the 32m cap is that the peak road traffic heading to/from the airport is well before the start of the "rush hour" for the bulk of road commuters. So the "traffic pressure on the roads" excuse is just a fallacy.

Qaanaaq

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121916266#Comment_121916266

And also the traffic forecast projections from that were assumed are no longer valid due to the WFH changes since covid.

jwm121

Any chance Cathay will bring back the Dublin to Hong Kong route? The cap may make it hard for them to return but was such a handy and easy route rather than having to connect in London or Amsterdam.

dublin12367

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121920058#Comment_121920058

With the cap, no. No room for growth. Even without the cap I’d say even that would have been unlikely to return this year. Might be better to discuss this in the dub routes thread.

Economics101

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0321/1439255-ccpc-blocks-daa-purchase-of-car-park-near-dublin-airport/

About time the CCPC issued its direction in what should have been a slam dunk case. The reaction of the DAA in the attached RTE link is truly pathetic. They seem to think that no-one else would be willing to purchase the vacant facility..

dublin12367

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121923253#Comment_121923253

Id have to disagree with you, if someone else wanted to buy it, why didn’t they when it went up for sale?

IngazZagni

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121923253#Comment_121923253

What other parties were interested in purchasing it when it was on sale? Have any of them made public comments since the sale?

What will this mean for the consumer this summer with less supply than 2019 but demand slightly higher?

L1011

Likely to remain shut all summer, and with an obvious place to direct angry passengers to complain to.

prunudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121923528#Comment_121923528

On the contrary, sit in the side lines, wait for the ccpc to make its judgement and swoop in when the competition have been eliminated. Any prospective buyer now has the upper hand. For all we know, current owner's were doing similar to other land owners and using the daa as a cash cow.

x567

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121923528#Comment_121923528

They probably knew they’d be out-bid by DAA who could base a bid on higher competition-proofed numbers to an owner who just wants the highest possible price. Now DAA are out of the picture, rightly so, potential operators can assess the (lower) prices they will need to charge to be competitive with DAA’ car parks and base a bid on that assessment. CCPC doing their job…

Economics101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121923528#Comment_121923528

One good reason might be that no-one else was willing to offer as much as DAA, and that could well be because as a potential monopolist DAA would be willing to pay more than anyone else, who would have to face competition (from DAA).

Noxegon

I don't understand why QuickPark don't reopen it themselves until such time as they have a sale. They must be leaving an absolute fortune on the table.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121924670#Comment_121924670

Quickpark were kicked out by the landlord for non payment, dating back to pre pandemic. It's the landlord selling it, quickpark are gone.

trellheim

What is bothering me is why the landlord is not running it or getting someone to, DAA are warning of full carparks over easter already, it'd be ching ching and charge what you like for a fixed asset sitting idle.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121925302#Comment_121925302

You can't just rapidly open something like that - you need buses, drivers (and breakroom facilities for those drivers), parking spots at the airport (DAA would have to provide these, lest there being another CCPC case), security, a booking system, etc.

The number one issue there is drivers - there is a severe shortage of bus drivers in the country

Quickpark was connected to Dublin Coach; DAA use Aircoach to run their carpark shuttles so both are/were tapping existing pools of drivers

Noxegon

If there was a will to do it it could be done.

A quick back of the envelope calculation suggests that if fully sold at €10/day the gross takings would be of the order of €25m/year.

Obviously that's not entirely realistic, given the seasonality of demand and costs, but it should comfortably generate €10m/year anyway.

LiamaDelta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121925302#Comment_121925302

Pretty sure the landlord is the banks. Whilst they love cash, a vacant site with no lease is much more valuable to them in terms of getting it sold, particularly when asset values are increasing anyway.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121925509#Comment_121925509

10m doesn't go that far with a business of that scale. Driver costs alone would take 2m/year. Buses, diesel/charging (DAA would very much want you to have electric buses, even if their own currently aren't), insurance for the buses and the carpark itself will all burn money

Remember that Quickpark weren't paying their rent from January 2019 (and that article mentions arrears pre October 2018 even!); so it wasn't working for them then and was clearly in trouble pre-pandemic.

trellheim

6122 car parking spots x 20 quid a day is over 120 grand a day , for 6 months is 22 million quid sitting on the table , banks let it out on a month to month basis and have an agent run it for a rake , that will wash its face all day long.

And for those arguing it would take time, as I mentioned above DAA are already warning of full carparks, there would be political pressure for the extra spaces to make shuttles plus required infra reappear quickly.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926892#Comment_121926892

You aren't going to have it full for 20/day in peak summer. That would be every space sold every day at the drive-up rate; when nearly everything is pre-booked. DAA Blue for July is 13.50 currently. You can trim that 120k/day down, hugely.

Nobody is going to be able to get bus drivers on a month by month basis.

Quickpark weren't paying their rent in 2018/9 when traffic was booming, so it is obvious that it isn't some magic money maker.

gossamerfabric

A steel structure like this on less than 10% of the plot and build commercial/offices/retail/hotels on the remainder would be optimal use of the land.

https://www.parkhausplatzhirsch.de/

DAA were paying a premium to get a monopoly. Nobody else will offer that premium.