Cork Airport - *Read Mod Note in First Post Before Posting*

Chris_5339762

Bruges is a PITA to get to, but is well worth a visit. Stop off in Ghent too, thats sorely underrated.

Cork - Amsterdam - Brussels with KLM and then onwards to Bruges. Or the underrated option - fly to London, Eurostar to Brussels and train to Bruges from there.

lordleitrim

Very promising article. Year round flights to Brussels from Ryanair mentioned too.

Airlines in talks with DAA over new routes from Cork

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2024/08/29/airlines-in-talks-with-daa-over-new-routes-from-cork/

Captainsatnav

UAE is a non starter due to existing connectivity out of Dublin but a non premium carrier such as EgyptAir to Cairo as a hub for the Africa/Mid East region would be fantastic.

Lisbon /Madrid for onward to Latin America will also be very helpful for many people living in Munster from that part of the world and also tourism from here.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122558821#Comment_122558821

UAE wasn't mentioned there? Emirates is a non starter due to the aircraft. Ethiad have been refused allocation for Dublin airport this winter so there is some argument there for a possible A321LR to Cork when they are delivered in Q3 25, maybe for summer 26? Very speculative obviously. Even more speculative would be FlyDubai picking up Emirates slack from the Dublin cap on a 737 Max out of Cork.

I think the big selling point for a flight to the Middle East would be one stop to Australia and New Zealand. Qatar, who have been discussed a lot for Cork recently, would fill that role (as would Fly Dubai and Ethiad) whereas EgyptAir would not.

It seems from the article anyway that there won't be any long haul announced for 2025.

Chris_5339762

Chris would be happy with more KLM Amsterdam and more Air France Paris

the beer revolu

Who's Chris?

Chris_5339762

←

←

←

markodaly

A flight to the UAE from Cork Airport would be a great success I think.

Runway appears to be an issue though. How long would we need to extended it to circumvent them? Would 1km do?

thomil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122563313#Comment_122563313

I’d say around 500 meters should be enough. Emirates regularly use 28L/10R at Dublin with their 777s, and that Runway is only 2637 meters long. Granted, the resulting take-off performance is akin to a morbidly obese albatross or a particularly lethargic pterodactyl, but they make it work.

Adding 500 meters to Cork’s main runway, which should just about be possible without excessive earth moving works, would take 16/34 up to 2633 meters. The bigger issue for me with regards to Emirates is the available apron space and the taxiways, or rather the lack thereof. I’m not sure if a 777 could turn around on the main runway in Cork. In addition, there’s only one aircraft stand at Cork Airport that can take aircraft of the size that are operated by Emirates, Stand 19, all the way in the Cargo section of the airport. This would block three other aircraft stands over there and block access to a hangar from what I can see, so it’s not a viable option for a scheduled operation.

To make a regular operation of the type of wide body aircraft that Emirates like feasible in Cork, we’re probably not just looking at a runway extension, but at the demolition of the old terminal, the relocation of the flight school and GA apron, and the construction of a full-length parallel taxiway. None of this is particularly difficult, but it would be a massive investment, one that I honestly don’t think is warranted at this stage.

Now, Etihad or Qatar are a different matter. They operate, or have ordered smaller aircraft that wouldn’t require anything but the runway extension.

snotboogie

Despite all the rumours, I’d say Qatar are a non starter, as they only operate narrow bodies to the Gulf and Central Asia, a long haul route on a 737 max with issues like cramped seating and no attached IFE would go against their luxury branding.

A route with Ethiad on an A321LR is a possibility as they are rumoured to be targeting Europe with those planes but you’d be relying on them looking for extra pax not available from Dublin out of Ireland. The question is whether the runway could handle it, 6,500km is considered a reliable range on the A321LR, Cork to the UAE is 6,000km. Maybe with a premium configuration (which Ethiad will be using on some A321LR) it could be done.

FlyDubai would be the dark horse, as they have connections with Emirates and Dubai would be a far more attractive P2P than Abu Dhabi or Doha. They fly a similar distance to Penang on a 737 Max 8 but again the question would be if the runway could handle it.

thomil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122563472#Comment_122563472

When it comes to the 737 MAX8, I’m pretty sure that would work. Norwegian used them on the Providence run without any payload restrictions I could notice when I made my little trip there in 2018. I would agree with you on Qatar, it seems like a long shot, but I’d just like to point out that their 737 MAX8 do operate with a two-class layout and IFE, so it wouldn’t be a reduction in service quality.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122563798#Comment_122563798

IFE is only in business and its iPads. Economy have to use their own devices and can access the in flight services via onboard Wi-Fi. To be fair the legroom is spectacular for a narrow body and way better than I would have thought before watching this video:

https://youtu.be/NJDU5X7PMqE?si=5p9iH7YTHLwLnIch

If Qatar were to have a change of heart and use the 737 on Long Haul it would be an amazing addition.

marno21

Qatar could also do a flight to a quieter UK airport with a 787-8 (or perhaps a 737 Max) and tag Cork along as an addition.

Any route via the Middle East would likely be using Aus/NZ as their primary revenue generating destination and Cork-Cardiff-Doha-Sydney is infinitely more palatable than a stressful layover in Heathrow for example. The stopover in somewhere like Cardiff would be fairly brief and seamless also.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122564943#Comment_122564943

I think that would be amazing on a 787, if they could pull it off but would be miserable on a 737. 8+ hours including two takeoffs and landings on a narrowbody would be a tough sell.

ACitizenErased

If Cork has any ambition they'll have to extend the runway first and foremost. It's the biggest issue in launching longer routes.

DylanQuestion

It makes no sense to me that they didn’t do it during the resurfacing. As mentioned, even 500m extra. Even if they don’t need it right now, better to have a runway too long that isn’t used than a runway too short that is prohibitive to route expansion

markodaly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122569423#Comment_122569423

I am guessing cost was the main reason not to do it.

It seems to be at some stage it will need to be done though.

Acosta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122569423#Comment_122569423

That was done at short enough notice, as they changed the time to do it during covid. Even if they wanted to extend it(which they don't appear to), I'd imagine it would be a long enough planning process.

Chris_5339762

It'd be a huge planning process with every tom dick and harry complaining.

I'd say a better (overall) option would be to extend the east-west runway. Far less wind related diversions that way as N/S is a bit ridiculous in a city where the predominant wind is SW. While they're at it, do it to CAT3 standards and remove the Cork Fog problem.

JCX BXC

The wind related diversions are much less frequent than they used to be in fairness.

Acosta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122574579#Comment_122574579

It would probably be easy enough to go west. The only thing is the two roads that would require a small tunnel each. However, that runway isn't as wide as the main one, and would probably need to be completely rebuilt. They would probably end up extending the main runway on the city end, if they were ever to do it.

snotboogie

The plan was to extend the North South runway on the northern end by 247m which would take it to 2390m, longer than the Cardiff runway which operated a 787 Dreamliner to Qatar.

Ashill5

Friends are flying out from Cork Airport next week, went to book the carpark this evening and its booked out.

Are there other options in Cork City for parking for a few days that would be good for the airport connection

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122587111#Comment_122587111

Try CAPS (cork air park service) they are based in the airport business park and run a shuttle bus to the terminal.

Acosta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122587111#Comment_122587111

Was onto them about the same. The online capacity is booked out, but they said there's plenty of space in the Express Red Car Park for people that haven't pre-booked.

Chris_5339762

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122575012#Comment_122575012

They are, but is the Embarears of the KLMs that get caught as their crosswind tolerances are much lower than the 737s and the Airbuses. Then, off to Shannon with you. We won't mention that they can almost, but not quite, land on the East-West runway. I don't know the maths of it, but its within a few hundred meters.

yagan

Everytime I see an update for this thread I excitedly click on it to see if there's a new route announcement, and more often than not it's posts about the same circular discussion about runway lengthening. I get it, but can that discussion have it's own thread?

hans aus dtschl

Would it possible to work on that E-W runway and extend it while the N-S is in operation? It seems like that would be a good route to go rather than trying to extend the existing runway. Then whenever the time came to extend the existing runway, operations could continue uninterrupted. I realise that overall costs would be high, but surely it would be worthwhile to develop redundancy and keep operations going while extending.

The houses to the East of the airport would be the biggest losers in this scenario from what I can see.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122596717#Comment_122596717

This thread covers a wide variety of topics from route announcements to day to day questions (parking, food, operations) to infrastructure to general comments on service at the airport to speculation. Not everyone is going to be interested in every topic.

On the E/W runway, I think it would need to be repaved as well as extended if it was to support all operations at the airport for any length of time.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122596717#Comment_122596717

I appreciate that everyone isn't interested in every Cork airport related topic, but I confess that it appears that I am interested in a lot of what's discussed in this thread.

To take a contrary position to yours, the route announcements have little to do with the actual airport itself, and they're all very well publicised information. As a rule, the airlines and airport actively try to spread this information. The upcoming developments of the security plaza, car parking, runway, operating hours etc tend to affect my day-to-day so they're as interesting to me as the routes and schedules, but they're generally not publicised.

By all means create a new thread "Cork airport route announcements" or "everything but Cork airport route announcements" or something like that, but I'd like to refute the fact that there's been circular discussion! On the contrary I'd say most of the discussion here has been pretty informative and I've learned plenty. For instance just a few posts ago I learned that the current KLM embraers are more susceptible to diversions. This affects me directly in choosing between the KLM and IE flights, both of which I book reasonably regularly. So I do appreciate people giving us those little details if I'm honest.

TLDR: I don't see the problem in this topic covering all the detailed stuff. For whatever my opinion is worth!