A new central Munster airport

Podge_irl

Most people I know are willing to pay a significant premium to travel from the local airport

Aer Lingus completely took the p1ss with running down flight schedules and upping prices

These don't appear to much back each other up.

If people were actually willing to pay significantly more then Aer Lingus wouldn't have run down their schedule and you wouldn't be complaining about the high prices.

Without assigning any infallibility to airlines or anything, they aren't choosing routes based on getting one over on the people down south or anything - the demand they say is to and from dublin and they consider it more profitable then flights from Cork/Shannon. I suspect having the two airports there already causes a problem in this regard.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120675098#Comment_120675098

Shannon is Limerick city airport.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120682439#Comment_120682439

They do back each other up. Aer Lingus ran down some routes to one flight per week and told their flight partners (and everyone else!) that there simply wasn't demand from Cork, and simultaneously embarked on a price war with Ryanair on Dublin routes. You had situations where a flight to Munich from Cork was once a week and cost more than €300 and was less than €20 daily in Dublin.

Aer Lingus ran down the routes because their staff aren't based in Cork. Their maintenance teams aren't in Cork. It's just another airport to them, it's not their home airport. They can make money easier out of Dublin. On the pilots forums their pilots were all going on about how Aer Lingus is basically flying out of Cork as a charity, but lo and behold Air France and KLM are subsequently filling planes. And note where exactly they're filling their planes to: it's not a coincidence or an anti-south consipracy. Aer Lingus after IAG buyout want to either fill Heathrow or Dublin.

Even in the past three years, Aer Lingus dropped three flights a week to AMS because of "lack of demand", and KLM then came in with something like 10 a week and filled the flights! So someone's very clearly been playing games for a long time now.

So like I say it's not an anti-south conspiracy, it was just bad luck for Cork. And now it's much better.

ArcadiaJunction

Ireland only need two Airports: Dublin and Belfast.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120676005#Comment_120676005

The point is that if you consider the total time taken to drive to the airport ,park your car, check-in , get through security and get to the gate , travelling to Shannon would likely take less time for a fairly significant chunk of the passengers currently departing from Dublin Airport.

It has never taken me more than 15 minutes from the time I park the car at Shannon Airport (including from the extended stay long term car park) to the time I am standing at the gate waiting to board.

Car park (or Bus/taxi) Stop to Gate in Dublin is at least an hour and quite a bit longer than that as peak times.

I would suggest that for anyone not living in North/Central Dublin , Shannon would probably be quicker overall and the further you go out into the Dublin Suburbs and surrounding counties, the more compelling the argument becomes.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120682808#Comment_120682808

Look at the actual current situation. Far more people travel to Dublin airport from Limerick/Shannon and the greater Midwest Region than the numbers that travel from anywhere in Leinster to Shannon. That is despite the vastly greater savings in time and convenience for people local to Shannon than for people outside the region. Expecting people in Dublin to travel to Shannon to save a few minutes on total time from front door to plane door is absolute fantasy. People care far more about price and choice (of routes, destinations and dates) than they do about the time it takes to travel to and navigate an airport.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120683173#Comment_120683173

Yep price matters above a certain point (for me it's around €120 price differential for a Dublin flight, currently).

But choice is definitely the biggest issue for Cork and Shannon. Dates, times and destinations are the clincher. At this stage I only really use Dublin when the Cork options are impossible or the prices are run up to crazy numbers.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120683173#Comment_120683173

Absolutely agree - People will only choose Shannon or Cork if they can get to the places they want to go to, regardless of the ease of getting to the Airport.

There needs to be a greater range of options from Shannon for connections.

A daily connection to mainland Europe (Paris/Frankfurt/Amsterdam) is an essential link to open up the eastward traffic.

However , if you are travelling to the US for example , Shannon is the better option than Dublin for a lot of people currently choosing Dublin.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120683234#Comment_120683234

There needs to be a greater range of options from Shannon for connections.

This is an awful awful lot easier said then done though.

bk

"This is an awful awful lot easier said then done though."

This is the point right, you can't force airlines to fly out of a particular airport, they will fly out of the airport which is the easiest to fill seats at and which is most profitable. They choose how to deploy their aircraft where they feel they will make the most money.

From an infrastrucutre prespective, I really can't see how you make Shannon any more attractive then it already is. It already has pretty much every advantage possible, long runways, pre-clearance, debt free, etc.

Cork there is a lot you could do, give it a longer runway, expand aircraft parking, upgrade lading category, make it debt free and I think it could pull in a lot of Corkonians who are currently heading to Dublin.

cgcsb

We should improve ground transport so that trains run directly from Dublin Airport towards Cork, Belfast and Galway with good connections to other lines. Every train station in Ireland should be under 3 hours from Dublin Airport and the other cities should be under 2 hours from Dublin Airport by rail.

We should have one major airport like Amsterdam and attract as many long haul destinations as possible and the other airports should be more regional, flights to the UK, Spain, France and a handful of other destinations. The small airports are pretty quiet most of the time.

Building another airport is bonkers. One of the Belfast airports should be demolished so the other could have a decent standard of service and there is absolutely no need for internal flights in Ireland, that money should be invested in modernising the railways.

lotusm

So what about cost of building this new airport... at the end of day its comes down to money... use the existing infrastructure and seek improvements to it... like anything big in this country its going cost billions... we can't even build enough houses for our young people at affordable prices etc. etc

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120704385#Comment_120704385

As a Corkonian myself (living in Dublin) that is a pretty silly opinion!

People will typically choose whichever makes most sense for themselves, depending on a variety of factors.

If Cork was cheaper for a given destination, nearly everyone would choose the speed and convince of Cork over Dublin. But if it was more expensive, then it probably depends by how much. €50, probably most would still choose Cork, €500 and many would make the trip to Dublin.

Also other factors play in, is there actually a flight from Cork to your destination? Once a day or only once a week? Timing that suits you! Etc.