Dublin Airport - Terminal 3

Negative_G

http://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-airport-5-2988906-Sep2016/?utm_source=shortlink

With the imminent construction of the parallel runway at Dublin, the idea of a third terminal is being mooted at cabinet according to TheJournal.

I believe pax numbers at the moment are circa 25 million per annum. Realistically what numbers would the airport need to be handling before it would be considered absolutely necessary? 35/40 million?

It is nice to see that is being discussed at least. Forward planning, especially regarding infrastructure has been severely lacking for a long, long time.

It would be great to get an actual rail link to the city centre but I cant see it happening anytime soon.

View Profile

When they build the parallel northern runway, the area around the tower/fire station is screaming for a new large modern spacious terminal.

Jamie2k9

T3 is not going to happen, this review is completely pointless and I hope it's just going through the motions. The daa have no plans to even consider T3 no matter what the report says.

A second runway would help with some terminal issues at the minute.

afatbollix

Might as well do a LHR and do a T5 at the end of the two runways leaving space in the middle of upgrading. Then have a train running out to piers.

maximum12

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

T3 is not going to happen, this review is completely pointless and I hope it's just going through the motions. The daa have no plans to even consider T3 no matter what the report says.

A second runway would help with some terminal issues at the minute.

Who's to say the DAA would be running the third terminal.

Jamie2k9

maximum12 wrote: »

Who's to say the DAA would be running the third terminal.

It will be them who plan and build it whatever happens and I would expect they will be running it, you don't have many competing terminal operators in Europe and given you have two big operators at Dublin which are more less 80% of traffic you either build to Ryanair spec or Aer Lingus spec unless you can attract one of them nobody would be interested and then you have one will play race to bottom and the other will have the advantage such as USPC where they are.

sparrowcar

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

T3 is not going to happen, this review is completely pointless and I hope it's just going through the motions. The daa have no plans to even consider T3 no matter what the report says.

A second runway would help with some terminal issues at the minute.

Now yes, but are you saying the DAA will never consider T3? Planning it now for competition in say 10 years makes sense. It's well documented that DUB will get a 3rd terminal if growth continues so what makes you think this is not the case.

Jamie2k9

sparrowcar wrote: »

Now yes, but are you saying the DAA will never consider T3? Planning it now for competition in say 10 years makes sense. It's well documented that DUB will get a 3rd terminal if growth continues so what makes you think this is not the case.

Not never but put it this way I wouldn't expect much attention for a number of years. T2-F will likely get go ahead once new Runway is open.

L1011

maximum12 wrote: »

Who's to say the DAA would be running the third terminal.

Sense. Fully independent terminals don't work. Even the US system involves leasing them off the airport operator

markpb

Why are people saying that T3 won't be needed? This is about planning for the future, something we do very rarely in this country. Maybe they've no intention of building it for ten years but they want to make sure that nothing that happens in the meantime gets in the way of that.

Irish Steve

The issue that hasn't been mentioned recently is that the pier expansion plans were dependent on the closure of 16/34, which is now being resisted by the airlines, for good operational reasons, and if 16/34 remains in use as a runway, the clearance zones required will prevent the pier expansions that were being looked at, as well as making it more complex to have ramp space to the west of that runway.

To enable good road access, it will make much more sense for any new terminal facilities to start at the western end of the runways, rather than in the middle of the area, with future expansion then being towards the middle, rather than the other way round.

An equally important upgrade will be to sort out a better cargo ramp and access, dragging cargo dollies from the existing cargo warehouse area to the other end of the airfield is not an effective strategy, and if cargo and the related buildings were moved, that would free up a lot of space in the existing terminal area. It would have made more sense to divert the southern perimeter road and build cargo facilities on the area that's now the Dublin Bus Depot and out towards the St Margaret's end.

Another option would be to put cargo on the northern side of the new runway, but that would then require another major road diversion in order to get the free space that would be needed outside of the sterile area around the runway.

The present cargo ramp space and warehouse locations are presenting increasing problems, with aircraft having to be moved from stand to stand to facilitate operations, which is far from ideal, and costly for the operators. Some of the remote stands are not accessible for loading and unloading, and the drainage channels on other areas are a significant risk factor for damage to cargo when moving dollies around the ramp, and it's also not easy to move high loaders long distances for the same reason.

There has been very little real attention paid to these issues over a long period of time, and because most cargo work is at night, I'm not sure that the high level people at DAA are properly aware of what goes on or the implications of their strategy.

murphaph

Irish Steve wrote: »

To enable good road access, it will make much more sense for any new terminal facilities to start at the western end of the runways, rather than in the middle of the area, with future expansion then being towards the middle, rather than the other way round.

If they build a second parallel runway then they can build it, close existing, tunnel under to midfield terminal, reinstate existing runway.

Jamie2k9

markpb wrote: »

Why are people saying that T3 won't be needed? This is about planning for the future, something we do very rarely in this country. Maybe they've no intention of building it for ten years but they want to make sure that nothing that happens in the meantime gets in the way of that.

Nobody is but there is adquate scope to full fill capacity meeds for some time and DUB will not continue to add over 2 million passengers pa.

Tenger

A long standing issue which some posters may not be familiar with is that the then Aer Rianta originally planned to build T2 to the west of the current airfield along with a parallel runway. This plan dates back approx 30 years. They were so proud of this future plan that they showed it to the national airline, which of course then leaked into public knowledge.
However they purchased the land for the runway but not the terminal, this land was was purchased by the MacAvaddy brothers, who had heard of the plan.
Aer Rianta then had to revise their plans due to not wanting to pay the premium being asked for the land. Hence the situation where T2 is in a less than optimum position.
So any "review" that looks at a possible T3 will run up against the fact that the Western Terminal will involve significant land purchasing costs.

And this anecdote might give a sense of the timeline involved in the development in such capital projects. Any mooted T3 might open in 2030?

jesus_thats_gre

Is there any sense in positioning Terminal 3 as a complete replacement for Terminal 1? Build it where the large hangers are behind Topaz and McDonalds so that the modern Pier D remains in play?

Tenger

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

Is there any sense in positioning Terminal 3 as a complete replacement for Terminal 1? Build it where the large hangers are behind Topaz and McDonalds so that the modern Pier D remains in play?

So the game of airport tetris begins..........
first you would need to build new hangers to accommodate the existing companies operating from these facilities (Dublin AeroSpace, Eirtech, Ryanair, anyone else?)
Then you need to figure out how to have a terminal there with H6 on the 'wrong' side of it.....because Im going to guess EI arent going to move out of there. (unless you build them a new hanger and allow FR or Dub Aerospace to move into the now vacated H6)
Then you need to actually build this notional new terminal and perhaps have it connected to the existing airport infrastructure.....

Alternatively, build EI a new large hanger/office building somewhere and use the H6 site for T3?

sparrowcar

Tenger wrote: »

A long standing issue which some posters may not be familiar with is that the then Aer Rianta originally planned to build T2 to the west of the current airfield along with a parallel runway. This plan dates back approx 30 years. They were so proud of this future plan that they showed it to the national airline, which of course then leaked into public knowledge.
However they purchased the land for the runway but not the terminal, this land was was purchased by the MacAvaddy brothers, who had heard of the plan.
Aer Rianta then had to revise their plans due to not wanting to pay the premium being asked for the land. Hence the situation where T2 is in a less than optimum position.
So any "review" that looks at a possible T3 will run up against the fact that the Western Terminal will involve significant land purchasing costs.

And this anecdote might give a sense of the timeline involved in the development in such capital projects. Any mooted T3 might open in 2030?

As far away as 2030? I would have though 2022-2024 max.

Tenger

sparrowcar wrote: »

As far away as 2030? I would have though 2022-2024 max.

Call me a cynic........

Runway planned for operation in 2020. Cant see another terminal being greenlighted till several years after that if at all.

LXFlyer

The other issue no one ever seems to mention is how would a new terminal located to the west be served by public transport?

Would it require new bus routes or massive detours for any existing services?

The beauty of having central terminals is that PT can serve them all relatively easily in one go.

How would any proposed rail lines fit in?

A DART spur would become the optimal method continuing underground to T3 but it would be quite a way from Metro North for example.

I'd have thought the most immediate priority in terms of terminals would be the second pier at T2.

Pat Dunne

Now that the "magic" figure of 25 million pax has been achieved to trigger the new parallel runway development. What is the projected figure to get the wheels turning on T3, 35/40 million?

Based on the current and projected pax figures (perfect world scenario), when is it likely that these figures could potentially be achieved?

jesus_thats_gre

Tenger wrote: »

So the game of airport tetris begins..........
first you would need to build new hangers to accommodate the existing companies operating from these facilities (Dublin AeroSpace, Eirtech, Ryanair, anyone else?)
Then you need to figure out how to have a terminal there with H6 on the 'wrong' side of it.....because Im going to guess EI arent going to move out of there. (unless you build them a new hanger and allow FR or Dub Aerospace to move into the now vacated H6)
Then you need to actually build this notional new terminal and perhaps have it connected to the existing airport infrastructure.....

Alternatively, build EI a new large hanger/office building somewhere and use the H6 site for T3?

I am an IT Architect so I automatically feel qualified when it comes to boxes on a page, i.e. Google Maps :P

Pat Dunne

Pat Dunne wrote: »

Now that the "magic" figure of 25 million pax has been achieved to trigger the new parallel runway development. What is the projected figure to get the wheels turning on T3, 35/40 million?

Based on the current and projected pax figures (perfect world scenario), when is it likely that these figures could potentially be achieved?

T1+T2 capacity is circa 42m.

Currently Dublin is handling 27-29 million. There is a lot of spare capacity and as growth per year drops off due to the runway capacity. Pax numbers will probably top out at 34-35 by runway opening.

Inevitably there would be a growth bubble post runway opening. So you could get to max terminal capacity theoretically mid 20's.

All based on no aviation or national recession etc etc and constant growth progress

Irish Steve

There are so many issues with the existing terminal structure, it's not even funny. Access by road is not good, and another 25% will cause massive problems unless the whole road system is redesigned. Hangar 6 could be moved to another area further from the terminals, but care with the location would be needed, as the wrong location will cause significant problems with turbulence in the wrong places, the threshold of the old 23 (yes I'm giving my age away again) was not fun when the wind was coming over the hangar area, the combination of the disturbance caused by the hangars added to the effect of the drop down in ground levels towards Swords combined to make short final in a light aircraft an interesting challenge on occasions, and I am aware that the hangar at Shannon causes some problems with some wind directions. So, moving Hangar 6 could be problematic.

As for public transport, the cynic in me wonders if there will be any effective or appropriate public transport left in 10 years time, as the relevant unions seem to have a death wish, and the management of the two main public transport operators in Dublin seem to be completely unable to deal with the complexities of modern Dublin, as can be seen by their inability to get away from the concept of forcing almost everyone to travel to the centre of Dublin, even if their eventual destination is nowhere near the centre of the city.

Depending on buses only for services to deal with 30 to 40 million passengers a year is looking like a very risky strategy, the grid lock on the roads in the area is only going to get worse, and central government seems to be very reluctant to properly engage with any of the stake holders.

That said, we have no way to predict what the effects of Brexit and the IAG ownership of Aer Lingus are going to mean for the volumes of passengers passing through Dublin, and there is no way to predict the economic implications that are embedded in the next 10 years. If you then add to that the inability of the political system to look beyond the next election, I suspect that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better in relation to the orderly development of the airport.

LXFlyer

Irish Steve wrote: »

There are so many issues with the existing terminal structure, it's not even funny. Access by road is not good, and another 25% will cause massive problems unless the whole road system is redesigned. Hangar 6 could be moved to another area further from the terminals, but care with the location would be needed, as the wrong location will cause significant problems with turbulence in the wrong places, the threshold of the old 23 (yes I'm giving my age away again) was not fun when the wind was coming over the hangar area, the combination of the disturbance caused by the hangars added to the effect of the drop down in ground levels towards Swords combined to make short final in a light aircraft an interesting challenge on occasions, and I am aware that the hangar at Shannon causes some problems with some wind directions. So, moving Hangar 6 could be problematic.

As for public transport, the cynic in me wonders if there will be any effective or appropriate public transport left in 10 years time, as the relevant unions seem to have a death wish, and the management of the two main public transport operators in Dublin seem to be completely unable to deal with the complexities of modern Dublin, as can be seen by their inability to get away from the concept of forcing almost everyone to travel to the centre of Dublin, even if their eventual destination is nowhere near the centre of the city.

Depending on buses only for services to deal with 30 to 40 million passengers a year is looking like a very risky strategy, the grid lock on the roads in the area is only going to get worse, and central government seems to be very reluctant to properly engage with any of the stake holders.

That said, we have no way to predict what the effects of Brexit and the IAG ownership of Aer Lingus are going to mean for the volumes of passengers passing through Dublin, and there is no way to predict the economic implications that are embedded in the next 10 years. If you then add to that the inability of the political system to look beyond the next election, I suspect that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better in relation to the orderly development of the airport.

For the record, the public transport companies are not responsible for the design and specification of PSO services any more - that is down to the NTA who are on the record as saying that without significant additional funding they are unable to add extra services. The Minister has hinted at a significant increase in funding next year to develop new services.

But there is some light at the end of the tunnel - the Bus Eireann PSO route 109A now operates to/from the airport every hour 24 hours a day 7 days a week to Ratoath, Ashbourne, Dunshaughlin, Navan and Kells.

I wouldn't necessarily be making judgements about the future of Irish public transport based on the current strike action. It's not pretty, but it will resolve itself. Take it to the aviation industry - did we say the same every time Aer Lingus had major disputes - I don't think so. It will be resolved eventually.

I agree with your general comment - it's crazy not having a local network of PSO services to/from the Airport and the general areas of north Dublin.

But I think it is worth thinking about the public transport implications when considering a new terminal location. I'm not convinced that west is best from that perspective as it would mean potential duplication and remoteness from any rail connection if and when it does finally get built.

DAA presentation to engineers Ireland earlier this evening suggested that T3 wasn't necessarily needed as current terminals with modifications could handle 50 Million plus. Gent presenting said that a rail link was badly needed and that NTA or TII had said Metro was best option and that they had provided for the rail link in the Airport City design.

T3 in my eyes would be a great way of decluttering the airport and getting an efficient set up started. The multitude of road blocks, speed bumps and obstructions to ever getting T3 started is well documented, I can't realistically see T3 getting started before 2030.

Middle Man

Tenger wrote: »

A long standing issue which some posters may not be familiar with is that the then Aer Rianta originally planned to build T2 to the west of the current airfield along with a parallel runway. This plan dates back approx 30 years. They were so proud of this future plan that they showed it to the national airline, which of course then leaked into public knowledge.
However they purchased the land for the runway but not the terminal, this land was was purchased by the MacAvaddy brothers, who had heard of the plan.
Aer Rianta then had to revise their plans due to not wanting to pay the premium being asked for the land. Hence the situation where T2 is in a less than optimum position.
So any "review" that looks at a possible T3 will run up against the fact that the Western Terminal will involve significant land purchasing costs.

And this anecdote might give a sense of the timeline involved in the development in such capital projects. Any mooted T3 might open in 2030?

All green land should not exceed agricultural value + 25% when under CPO...

Commotion Ocean

Could we not build a T3 and use it exclusively for Dublin > Donegal and Dublin > Kerry flights are all other CTA flights, thus using the CTA to its maximum potential.

LXFlyer

dfeo wrote: »

Could we not build a T3 and use it exclusively for Dublin > Donegal and Dublin > Kerry flights are all other CTA flights, thus using the CTA to its maximum potential.

Not very conducive to fast transfers between flights given the efforts to build Dublin up as a transatlantic hub?

Jamie2k9

CTA would require legislation changes. Anyway building a terminal for it is madness.

Spanish Eyes

Terminal 1a for all non Ryr flights. Separate entrance and security.

Terminal 1b for Ryanair. Entrance separate and nearer the gates with own security.

But how would they get T1 b ers to use the shops!

That walk to Ryr gates is quite long.

Anyway. Just saying.

Other transport infrastructure is needed before a T 3. Metro North and DART u. For example.

Commotion Ocean

CTA would require legislation changes.

How would it require legislation changes? The CTA has been in place for years already.