Dublin routes news and general chat

Paul2019

Just some background for younger people:

The government used to force trans Atlantic flights to serve Shannon if they wanted to serve Dublin.

The thinking was that it would spread economic development to the West.

Airlines would have no choice - except they DID have a choice and they served places like Manchester instead of Ireland.

It got so bad that over 60% of trans Atlantic journeys from Dublin went east to a British or Continental hub and even the viability of Aer Lingus services was threatened.

So Yeah ! Let's have the government restart it's meddling with aviation again - like it worked out so well the first time !

x567

Whilst Dublin will always remain dominant as the capital city's and nation's primary airport, better utilisation of the country's other aviation assets does make sense and politicians and others should be contemplating how this can be brought about; particularly at a time when aspects of Dublin's facilities appear to be near to full capacity. I strongly disagree however that there should be any notion of the government 'forcing' airlines to use alternative airports. Competitive airport pricing, better marketing, better connectivity, better reliability, etc. can all play a part in making it attractive for airlines and passengers to choose to go to another Irish airport. Compulsion rarely works, even if it might buy a vote or two in the short term...

Noxegon

Correct. If the government wants to boost Shannon, a good way to do it would be to reduce landing fees/passenger fees there – potentially to zero.

Blut2

A big problem is the split between SNN, KIR and ORK all in the same region. If the three were combined there would be enough traffic for a decent regional airport, hitting about 4mn PAX a year. But split between the lot none can get critical mass.

x567

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121008480#Comment_121008480

Bring on Charleville International Airport...! (Is CIA taken?) Or maybe just build better roads to link the regional population to SNN, which is the most viable of the three for traffic expansion (especially for long haul/USA) in my biased view...

Van.Bosch

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121008480#Comment_121008480

Another problem is that they are regional airports so they would work better with regional planes - with EI and FR being 320/738 operators it makes it a challenge.

maybe when EIR develop scale they can expand at these airports more.

moonshy2022

Dublin needs to work on efficiencies. When I say Dublin I mean the airlines and handlers. Having enough staff is a start, followed by enough well maintained and serviceable GSE next. Being cheap just doesn’t cut it, I don’t mean fares I mean being mean with your finances and economics.

I think the DAA gets enough blame for operations at the airport without the ground handling companies taking their fair share or the airlines. At the end of the day if there isn’t enough buses, de-icers, fuel trucks, people to drive the air bridges, push back the aircraft, unload the bags etc etc etc then that isn’t the airports fault.

JCX BXC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121010168#Comment_121010168

Problem with regional planes are economics. Fares tend to be much higher on turboprops.

lisasimpson

The view and approach to the regional airports in the 1st place is wrong in my opinion. The regionals should complement Dublin Airport. The DAA have great expansion plans but they need to have people on side. With the way things are going they are going to be in bother with objections from locals already see it with the night time flights issue and locals getting annoyed over the parking situation. Let's face we are not going to see the famous rail link anytime soon.

So in terms of regionals we can't force airlines to use them but can send out signals of encouragement for them. Instead of local politicians shouting get airlines to use Shannon, Cork and knock more. How about working on making it easier to use these airports. Unless you drive getting to the regionals is a pain. I'm back living in mid West after 13 years in Cork. I try to use the regionals where I can. Its ridiculous no bus service from north tipp serves Shannon for example but can get bus or train to Dublin no problem. The bus routes that currently serve Shannon from Limerick or Galway don't serve well if you flight is an early departure or late arrival. Work on things like this. Hence reason in Limerick people end up getting the green bus to Dublin airport for early flights to London etc. I'm sure the same happens in Galway too easier to get bus to Dublin than Shannon.

Also Cork to their credit have done well to attract other airlines like Swiss etc. Let them build on this. Also for existing routes focus 1st on getting more of them year round.many summer schedules for example from Cork don't run the full march to October season.. some only start mid May/June to early Sept. Many still take summer holidays outside this. Would love to the likes of AL operate the likes of Dubrovnik for a few was longer.

Little things like these can complament Dublin Airport allowing it to continue develop its connectivity long haul to place where realitisly the others would never serve. Although one thing that annoys me about Shannon you would never hear of it looking to aim East. Its seems to stay trying to attract serves to the traditional base of the US.The younger Irish now head east to Dubai, aus and New Zealand. That and giving the changing demographics of the Ireland and the amount of people from Asia here now. There's potential there however the dollar is what they chase

cson

I love SNN but a DXB route much less Asia is pie in the sky. What they potentially could do, is a better tie up with BA in LHR and add some frequency to the LHR route to open that up.

SNN's niche is going to be in the form of scooping up some connecting traffic US-Europe-US that would otherwise be using DUB. I think EI have a real opportunity there, particularly if AA bring back PHL and they can interline pax to Europe.

Marcusm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120992134#Comment_120992134

singke aisle 2-cabin vs twin aisle 3 cabin plus 1/2 extra cabin. Delta much bigger on corp contracts ex-MSP based on a northwestern heritage. Likely cannibalism each other.

moonshy2022

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013670#Comment_121013670

Emirates have already said no to a Shannon route. They were asked a few years ago and said there was no market for it. Emirates smallest capacity 777 has 302 seats, 38 of those seats are business class. United currently service Shannon with 757s 169/176 seats 16 biz in that number. Aer Lingus 184 and 16. Both have scheduled low capacity aircraft for a reason. There is no way economically that a Middle East carrier could find a business plan to make an ME route work with the fleet they have and to the detriment of their route to Dublin. They have no skin in the Shannon game, they are a business and want to make money, having full or nearly full flights is what they want.

EchoIndia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013670#Comment_121013670

For Aer Lingus to have successful interline activity at Shannon would require an ability to fill the aircraft with sufficient passengers between a UK or EU airport and the mid-west itself, which could then be supplemented with the transit pax. That's how it works at DUB - the two passenger elements complement each other. From Aer Lingus's point of view, and given their risk-averse approach to short-haul routes, it's hard to see them making any meaningful shift in this direction as the market currently stands.

chasing_ghosts

Honestly, SNN currently having 4 TA flights (I know some are seasonal) is still a pretty decent situation considering. I guess if I was in charge, I'd connect the airport to Limerick with a train via Ennis, and use government subsidies to heavily reduce landing fees/ground handling charges.

And maybe fund an ATR on SNN-DUB and back a couple of times a day. Maybe that's silly but it could feed some pax through SNN while still allowing them to connect on to Europe? That's a lot of stops though, and you'd also want some sort of interline agreement with ME3/Hainan, say. Pie in the sky thinking, as mentioned above. Realistically, that sort of money is desperately needed elsewhere in our island.

Is SNN bookable to the world via LHR with BA in a single ticket? Honestly having a single stop from SNN to that many cities is surely enough? Maybe that's a figment of my imagination?

L1011

BA offer pretty much any connection that works, time wise, from SNN. They even offer double connections, e.g. random American Eagle served airports in the US where you'll be going SNN-LHR-XXX-YYY.

Some prices are absolutely insane on a random selection but I am looking at flights for next week!

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014503#Comment_121014503

Best thing you could do to improve Shannon’s passenger numbers is the motorway to Cork. Would really make the airport attractive in such a big market

x567

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014631#Comment_121014631

The fares from SNN with BA are often significantly higher than the equivalent ticket out of Dublin, even if you try to book reasonably far ahead. I often see ex-SNN fares 20%+ higher for certain long haul east-bound routes in business class, which is too big a difference an an already expensive ticket. No rhyme or reason to it…

Murph85

There should be direct flights from Cork to feed into Dublin network... 3 hours potentially plus before you get to dublin airport , isn't attractive

goingnowhere

You can blame Michael O'Leary for the lack of DUB-ORK he ran Aer Arann off the route back in 2005/6 through a classic fare dumping operation

O'Leary subsequently abandoned the route as Irish Rail launched an hourly service starting at 9.99 each way, the motorway was completed and Aircoach and Co started express routes, a 737 couldn't work but an ATR interlining into the morning TATL arrivals/departures had a chance.

Long term its going to be DUB, SNN and BFS each with rail connections to fill the gaps, ORK/KIR/NOC limited to some business/leisure markets

bikeman1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015860#Comment_121015860

Surely if there was a market there for it, it would be running already? I would love to see a Cork - Dublin ATR return interlined with flights ex DUB to the world. It's ridiculous that our second city with limited flights does not link in with our main airport on the island by air. European countries the continent over have short internal flights for exactly this purpose.

It would need to be a ORK based aircraft with an early morning 06:30 ex Cork and a late one back with an afternoon returning to Cork, crew change and then back to Dublin to make the evening wave of departures.

Something like ORK-DUB-LBA-DUB-ORK AM. ORK-DUB-EDI-DUB-ORK PM. And it should be a very late flight back at say 23:30/23:45 from Dublin that connects off as many flights into Dublin that evening.

JCX BXC

Nobody wants to fly on an ATR to Dublin to connect anymore, you'd just fly from Dublin at that stage. The cost would be very prohibitive and you really wouldn't be saving much time from most places. It's avoiding the airport completely that's attractive.

Chris_5339762

Stobart were thinking of it just pre-Covid, for that reason - to connect in Dublin. Properly timed Cork flights would work for connections.

The problem is the 3 hour drive which becomes 4 because Dublin airport is on the wrong side of the M50 and Dublin traffic for us. Which is fine, it makes sense as its on the correct side for Belfast which is much bigger. Buses have the same problem and the train is messy with a bus transfer from Heuston required. So I always have believed it would be possible again.

Shannon need connections through Heathrow yes but not from Aer Lingus. They need to get BA on board, to avoid the requirement to change from Terminal 2 to Terminal 5. Its easy, but had to predict timewise.

LiamaDelta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121017023#Comment_121017023

I would happily use a ORK-DUB connection if I could have the ease of parking, checking in, and clearing security in Cork, especially with bags checked through to destination.

goingnowhere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121020246#Comment_121020246

UK requires all passengers from non UK destinations to re clear full security so there isn't any real advantage to swapping to T5 (BA also use T3)

EI offers more ticketing options as they have historical relationships which BA are unlikely to offer like United, Virgin and Singapore

And EI is a lot more punctual at LHR than BA and a lot less likely to cancel short haul flights. Harden travellers know of the magic T5B to T2 transfer bus which saves ages

PTH2009

Flew Dublin -Gatwick recently, just a few mins before landing. Is that Brighton in the distance ?

titan18

Tbh, with the environmental stuff, there'll never be a Cork to Dublin flight again. The only major benefit imo would be getting to go through Cork security rather than Dublin. You're probably only looking at saving about an hour too (less if you're checking in bags)

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121047668#Comment_121047668

Depends on how fast the economics of electric aviation evolve. The medium term goal is to electrify small capacity short flights feeding into the longer range hub airports still reliant on larger fossil fuel planes, which in (very) theory would be exactly ORK-DUB.

JCX BXC

The killer will be the extra cost for the negligible time saving.

L1011

There's a strong argument that passengers who are connecting to the US should take a short prop flight, rather than backtracking on a jet to LHR/AMS and adding hours of jet airtime to their route. But whether a connections only, no point to point ticketing flight has a market is even more questionable

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121048173#Comment_121048173

That would be the exact market I'd presume, plus the ME3 and Turkish.

Air Canada and United Airlines have both already ordered 30-seat regional hybrid-electric planes from Heart Aerospace that can go about 200 km. With a 25-passenger configuration, the company says the distance doubles. They're due for delivery in 2028.

ORK to DUB is 230km, SNN to DUB is 195km, KIR 260km, NOC 175km. Or even MAN is 260km, LIV 230km, CWL 300km, NCL 350km etc. The financials/logistics of the market might be a bit more difficult for the UK flights but the range should definitely be there by the end of this decade for electric connections. And for our internal flights the numbers look a lot better.