Shannon Airport Thread [Mod Warning in First Post]

JCX BXC wrote: »

The new motorway, cutting what, 4 minutes off the previous drive to Galway?

WTF? On a busy summer day stuck behind tractors from Gort to Clarinbridge could add 40 mins to your journey easy. You haven't a notion if you think it only cuts 4 mins from Galway to Shannon. I'd say on average it cuts 20 mins a journey and makes for a far safer and comfortable drive.
Also it goes all the way to Tuam not to mention the catchment area of north Galway. Making it far more attractive to fly outta Shannon than having to drive to Dublin.

turbbo wrote: »

WTF? On a busy summer day stuck behind tractors from Gort to Clarinbridge could add 40 mins to your journey easy. You haven't a notion if you think it only cuts 4 mins from Galway to Shannon. I'd say on average it cuts 20 mins a journey and makes for a far safer and comfortable drive.

The motorway is 10Km longer than using the old N18. It's underused by locals as it's too far away from Galway. Google maps actually says taking the motorway takes slightly longer than taking the old N18.

Just seen your edit. It's only attractive if SNN has the routes to compete with DUB. That's never going to happen.

Cookiemunster wrote: »

The motorway is 10Km longer than using the old N18. It's underused by locals as it's too far away from Galway. Google maps actually says taking the motorway takes slightly longer than taking the old N18.

Ah here - there is no arguing with you. You do know that you're using google maps - with traffic switched off?

Deagol

JCX BXC wrote: »

The new motorway, cutting what, 4 minutes off the previous drive to Galway?

I was happy just reading this thread until I read this nonsense. It's being facetious to suggest that the motorway hasn't significantly improved access to the airport.

Tuam to Shannon is roughly 40 minutes faster. I've measured it myself once and google maps with traffic is agreeing closely with that number NOW. If you take it that in fact if I used the old road previously to the motorway being built then the traffic would have been even worse.

If time from Tuam is faster then it goes without saying that other area's in the hinterland of Galway have comparable improved times with obvious adjustments depending on how far east or west of the motorway / old N18 they are.

I've checked Inverrin for instance also, and google maps is saying the motorway is 30 minutes faster. I could go on.

Deagol wrote: »

I was happy just reading this thread until I read this nonsense. It's being facetious to suggest that the motorway hasn't significantly improved access to the airport.

Tuam to Shannon is roughly 40 minutes faster. I've measured it myself once and google maps with traffic is agreeing closely with that number NOW. If you take it that in fact if I used the old road previously to the motorway being built then the traffic would have been even worse.

If time from Tuam is faster then it goes without saying that other area's in the hinterland of Galway have comparable improved times with obvious adjustments depending on how far east or west of the motorway / old N18 they are.

I've checked Inverrin for instance also, and google maps is saying the motorway is 30 minutes faster. I could go on.

Google maps with traffic switched off is about as accurate as playing darts blindfolded.

JCX BXC wrote: »

The new motorway, cutting what, 4 minutes off the previous drive to Galway?

Now that's just ridiculous. The journey Galway - Shannon is a doddle now, compared to what it was with traffic etc.

Not only this but it opens up Tuam, Athlone etc. for easy access to Shannon, and less hassle than Dublin, the airport need to get out and market this.

Cookiemunster wrote: »

It's only attractive if SNN has the routes to compete with DUB. That's never going to happen.

Nonsense, of course people in Galway will use the existing routes from Shannon more now that they can get here easier, its a lot closer and less hassle than Dublin.

Those extra bums on seats would perhaps make the existing routes more viable and perhaps sustain new routes in the future.

Its chicken and egg, more routes and increased frequencies will attract more passengers from a wider area.

Can SNN increase it routes? Probably yes. Can SNN compete with DUB? Not in a million years. Lads ye a living in dream land if you think that SNN will ever draw large numbers of passengers out of DUB. It's not as simple as ye think it is. The airlines only want to be in DUB, where they're drawing passengers, not only from the Midwest, but from Cork and Belfast (which has two international airports) too. SNN is never going to be more than a small regional airport (and there's nothing wrong with that).

Cookiemunster wrote: »

But the vast majority people will choose the cheapest flights from the nearest airport.

Cookiemunster wrote: »

T
It's only attractive if SNN has the routes to compete with DUB. That's never going to happen.

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Can SNN increase it routes? Probably yes. Can SNN compete with DUB? Not in a million years. Lads ye a living in dream land if you think that SNN will ever draw large numbers of passengers out of DUB. It's not as simple as ye think it is. The airlines only want to be in DUB, where they're drawing passengers, not only from the Midwest, but from Cork and Belfast (which has two international airports) too. SNN is never going to be more than a small regional airport (and there's nothing wrong with that).

You are talking out of both sides of your mouth here. One minute you are telling us the vast majority of people use the cheapest and closest airport and next minute you are telling us Shannon is only attractive if it has the routes to match Dublin.

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Can SNN increase it routes? Probably yes. Can SNN compete with DUB? Not in a million years. Lads ye a living in dream land if you think that SNN will ever draw large numbers of passengers out of DUB. It's not as simple as ye think it is. The airlines only want to be in DUB, where they're drawing passengers, not only from the Midwest, but from Cork and Belfast (which has two international airports) too. SNN is never going to be more than a small regional airport (and there's nothing wrong with that).

I don't think anybody is implying that SNN can compete with DUB you're just twisting it. What I'm saying is that SNN can be a lot more competitive than it is today - hell even try reduce the parking charges - ridiculous that they are on a par with Dublin.

jasper100 wrote: »

You are talking out of both sides of your mouth here. One minute you are telling us the vast majority of people use the cheapest and closest airport and next minute you are telling us Shannon is only attractive if it has the routes to match Dublin.

Selective quotation of of context there twisting what I said. That's not very nice.

And nothing you've just said there contradicts what I said. SNN will never take passengers form the Dublin region out of DUB as you have claimed it could. However if SNN had more routes more local people would use the SNN rather than DUB. It's not that complicated and definitely isn't me talking out of both side of my mouth. Do try to keep up.

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Selective quotation of of context there twisting what I said. That's not very nice.

And nothing you've just said there contradicts what I said. SNN will never take passengers form the Dublin region out of DUB as you have claimed it could. However if SNN had more routes more local people would use the SNN rather than DUB. It's not that complicated and definitely isn't me talking out of both side of my mouth. Do try to keep up.

Why not?

I mentioned places like Athlone and Portlaoise. Not much in it distance wise between Shannon and Dublin.

At a stretch I mention as far away as Newbridge and Kildare, it being about an extra hour to get to Shannon. Norwegian fly to destinations 90 minutes outside New York, Ryanair have for years flown to airports outside major cities.

If Shannon wants to target people further away from the airport then promoting and marketing lower cost flights, cheap parking, competitive flight prices and shorter times from car door to airport gate will encourage people from further away to use it.

Shannon needs to play to and promote its advantages in choosing it over Dublin.

Shannon currently handles around 1.7 million passengers a year. For comparison,

Dublin 30 million
Cork 2.3 million
Knock 700k

At independence, Shannon group made some wild projections, which I’m not sure anyone took serious, but then minister for transport Leo Varadkar said 3 million would be reasonably achievable. My own view is that with the right planning and strategy this could be achieved in 5 or so years. I think it would be reasonable to expect a return of regular Chicago flights and increase on Philadelphia and New York. It would also be reasonable to expect regular flights to 4-7 major EU cities.

Shannon has a lot going for it but it is not easy to book flights from Shannon unless you know what you are doing, I pointed out 2 examples in my last post which could easily be fixed if Shannon management were aware they could apply pressure to the relevant airlines. I don’t think they have people with the right skills. Shannon’s current marketing strategy is a good ideas “fly Shannon, it’s easier”, but that won’t work when it is so hard to book a flight online. Even the flyshannon.ie website is utterly useless. People who encounter issues shopping for flights online get irritated way to easily and will often abandon their purchase. I feel a lot of people who try to book from Shannon will inevitably get fed up and simply book from Dublin instead as this is easier (for no reason other than Dublin’s scale)

Shannon are starting to do a better job of marketing existing routes, but could do more. One of the unfortunate things about the Shannon region is how easy it is to get to Dublin. As seats on Shannon flights get booked up, the price goes up (as in all airports) but as ordinary people are often priced out of the last few expensive seats they are forced to Dublin where the extra capacity means extra cheap seats. The business community in Dublin will often buy the largest few expensive seats as costs are usually not important. I don’t think the business community in the Shannon region will often opt to travel to Dublin as its easier to book and travel times are friendlier.

I was chatting with a colleague last year as she had organized travel for around 50 people for a conference in limerick. She said she would have time to try and fly people through shannon (even the dozen or so from London) so booked all their flights to Dublin, organized taxi vouchers and train tickets to limerick. I have read many examples on this thread of people who tell how collegues regularily drive to to Dublin instead of using Shannon. There is not a whole lot that can be done about this in the short term, but Shannon management should establish a business outreach team who can survey the needs of business in the region to identify new opportunities. I’m sure they do this in some form already but such a team could offer additional support for conferences and do more outreach.

Shocked to know the numbers. Cork is way ahead I'm guessing because Dublin is seen as less of an option?

snotboogie

turbbo wrote: »

Shocked to know the numbers. Cork is way ahead I'm guessing because Dublin is seen as less of an option?

Cork is actually a bit lower; 2.3m 2017, projected to be 2.4m 2018 and they have themselves speculated 2.6m for 2019. Whether that 2.6m can be achieved remains to be seen.

snotboogie wrote: »

Cork is actually a bit lower; 2.3m 2017, projected to be 2.4m 2018 and they have themselves speculated 2.6m for 2019. Whether that 2.6m can be achieved remains to be seen.

My bad, I have edited the post.

snotboogie wrote: »

Cork is actually a bit lower; 2.3m 2017, projected to be 2.4m 2018 and they have themselves speculated 2.6m for 2019. Whether that 2.6m can be achieved remains to be seen.

Cork people are notoriously cork centric. One of the teams I work with flys to Boston twice a year, with 4 flying from Shannon. The one cork guy insists he must fly from cork usually via Heathrow. It causes hassle for everyone. While this is obviously the exception rather than the rule for most cork people, there are a sizable number of corkonians like this. I don’t think people of the west or Midwest have that kind of affinity with our airport.

I also do feel the DAA may be a bit bitter about the whole Shannon separation and are giving cork airport more attention than they would have in the past. Corks success is a big “I told you so” to Shannon.

mdmix wrote: »

Cork people are notoriously cork centric. One of the teams I work with flys to Boston twice a year, with 4 flying from Shannon. The one cork guy insists he must fly from cork usually via Heathrow. It causes hassle for everyone. While this is obviously the exception rather than the rule for most cork people, there are a sizable number of corkonians like this. I don’t think people of the west or Midwest have that kind of affinity with our airport.

I also do feel the DAA may be a bit bitter about the whole Shannon separation and are giving cork airport more attention than they would have in the past. Corks success is a big “I told you so” to Shannon.

Yeah they should be taking a leaf out of Corks book.

snotboogie

mdmix wrote: »

Cork people are notoriously cork centric. One of the teams I work with flys to Boston twice a year, with 4 flying from Shannon. The one cork guy insists he must fly from cork usually via Heathrow. It causes hassle for everyone. While this is obviously the exception rather than the rule for most cork people, there are a sizable number of corkonians like this. I don’t think people of the west or Midwest have that kind of affinity with our airport.

I also do feel the DAA may be a bit bitter about the whole Shannon separation and are giving cork airport more attention than they would have in the past. Corks success is a big “I told you so” to Shannon.

There are two full coaches going from Cork City to Dublin airport every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I know plenty of people who will do a 7 hour round trip on an aircoach to save 20 quid on the ticket price. I don't know the difference in extent but Cork is sending thousands to Dublin airport every week.

Balf

mdmix wrote: »

if Shannon management were aware they could apply pressure to the relevant airlines. I don’t think they have people with the right skills.

The issue of Shannon's marketing has been mentioned a few times. How does this compare to this?

http://www.clare.fm/news/shannon-airport-soars-new-heights-prestigious-award-nomination/

For the sixth year in a row, the Midwest Facility has been shortlisted for the airline industry’s most coveted World Routes Marketing Award.

The awards celebrate airports for their outstanding achievements in route development marketing and benefits to the industry

Is it possible that their marketing expertise is no worse than most, and maybe better than many?

They seem to be active in all the right things - developing that connection to the region by (just for example) unveiling statues commemorating both the Munster team and Brendan O'Regan.

Are there structural issues they just can't overcome? Are expectations excessive? After all, passenger numbers are increasing. Just more slowly than people would like.

Balf wrote: »

The issue of Shannon's marketing has been mentioned a few times. How does this compare to this?Is it possible that their marketing expertise is no worse than most, and maybe better than many?

They seem to be active in all the right things - developing that connection to the region by (just for example) unveiling statues commemorating both the Munster team and Brendan O'Regan.

Are there structural issues they just can't overcome? Are expectations excessive? After all, passenger numbers are increasing. Just more slowly than people would like.

I think the numbers down in Cork say it all, - they can get all the awards in the world - they have to be doing something wrong if Cork is way above it.
Come to think of it the numbers in Knock are very impressive - considering it really is an airport in the middle of nowhere.

turbbo wrote: »

I think the numbers down in Cork say it all, - they can get all the awards in the world - they have to be doing something wrong if Cork is way above it.
Come to think of it the numbers in Knock are very impressive - considering it really is an airport in the middle of nowhere.

Cork has a much larger catchment area than Shannon. The populations of Limerick, Clare and Galway put together is slightly larger than Corks. And Cork also has Waterford, South Tipp and Kerry in its catchment area. It should have more passengers than Shannon.

Clareman

Of course Cork and Dublin should have a far busier airport, but with Galway and Limerick nearby Shannon shouldn't be so far behind. For me the issue is Shannon is gearing towards US and holidays not working people, outside of Heathrow there isn't feasible day trips available from Shannon which limits working trips. There are 4 return flights daily to both Paris and Amsterdam from Dublin but there isn't a single 1 from Shannon, surely there's enough people travelling these routes to have 1 return flight daily from those airports.

Balf wrote: »

The issue of Shannon's marketing has been mentioned a few times. How does this compare to this?Is it possible that their marketing expertise is no worse than most, and maybe better than many?

They seem to be active in all the right things - developing that connection to the region by (just for example) unveiling statues commemorating both the Munster team and Brendan O'Regan.

Are there structural issues they just can't overcome? Are expectations excessive? After all, passenger numbers are increasing. Just more slowly than people would like.

I don’t think Shannon have a great online presence, and personally I have never been asked for feedback, either in the airport or by online communication despite the fact I fly from their roughly once a year. Dublin have digital feedback capture in the airport, although I don’t know if they collect feedback online. While this using a massive difference I find Heathrow are much better at marketing and capturing feedback online, so Shannon could follow their lead.

The real reason I don’t think Shannon market themselves well is that 9 out of 10 people I talk to don’t know where you can fly to from Shannon, and generally are surprised when I mention I use the airport. Most people genuinely wouldn’t even consider it an option. Shannon have stepped it up recently tho and are improving.

Also I don’t think a lot of business people use Shannon, and while it is the airlines responsibility to do market research, growth in Shannon is so slow the airport should really consider stepping in to get a better idea of business needs in the area.

I’d also take the award with a pinch of salt. Most awards in any industry only recognize the best application form from whoever pays the fee. Often these awards require the winner to pay a additional fee to use the award in their own marketing.

Cloud

I wonder how much the (increased) preclearance charge is? https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2019/0109/1022266-airports-pre-clearance/

Clareman

mdmix wrote: »

I don’t think Shannon have a great online presence, and personally I have never been asked for feedback, either in the airport or by online communication despite the fact I fly from their roughly once a year. Dublin have digital feedback capture in the airport, although I don’t know if they collect feedback online. While this using a massive difference I find Heathrow are much better at marketing and capturing feedback online, so Shannon could follow their lead.

The real reason I don’t think Shannon market themselves well is that 9 out of 10 people I talk to don’t know where you can fly to from Shannon, and generally are surprised when I mention I use the airport. Most people genuinely wouldn’t even consider it an option. Shannon have stepped it up recently tho and are improving.

Also I don’t think a lot of business people use Shannon, and while it is the airlines responsibility to do market research, growth in Shannon is so slow the airport should really consider stepping in to get a better idea of business needs in the area.

I’d also take the award with a pinch of salt. Most awards in any industry only recognize the best application form from whoever pays the fee. Often these awards require the winner to pay a additional fee to use the award in their own marketing.

I think most people now go to airline websites rather than airport sites to make their decisions

Shn99

To be fair on social media a lot and run sponsored posts on insta,Facebook ect. That would reach a good amount of people as lots of people use those apps these days. quite a few busses in limerick advertising the likes of Lufthansa, American and Norwegian in Shannon too.

Clareman wrote: »

I think most people now go to airline websites rather than airport sites to make their decisions

yes, I agree with you but as I said, airline websites generally default to Dublin. Ryanair have multiple cancelled flights listed from Shannon, so if you don't know the routes you have to click in to each flight on a trial and error basis to see if it exists. as for are Lingus, on some screen resolutions under 1080p Shannon is not listed as an option. these issues might seem minuscule, but when people use computers and something doesn't look or feel right, they get a feeling similar to road rage. as the 2 main airlines that operate out of Shannon are negatively biased agains the airport (no conspiracy, probably just laziness or honest mistake) this negatively impacts Shannon, yes the responsibility to fix is the airlines, but as Shannon is taking a hit, they need to step in and pressure the airlines to fix. these aren't the only issues, just the easiest to explain.

add to that you have are Lingus advertising flights to jfk from Dublin on national radio last year and not mentioning Shannon as an option and an aer Lingus vehicle operating in Shannon Airport advertising Dublin airport.

also, in my experience most people don't even bother checking flights from Shannon, so I think Shannon need to step in and market the airport and routes. they have done some good work recently, just need to step up.

I have to disagree with you mdmix. My parents in their late 60s check the Ryanair and Aer Lingus sites for flights from Shannon before deciding if they need to go elsewhere. If they in their in their late 60s, not being that text savvy, can tell that you don't need to default to DUB, then theres no excuse for anyone not being able to do the same.