Waterford Airport.

Two flights a day and they would require operational funding. This funding is provided under the regional airport funding programme.

Most regional airports make little to no money from commercial flights (until they begin to hit a large volume of flights and passengers).

Taking Waterford as an example there are other revenue streams. The contact for having the based R117 (easily the biggest financial gainer), renting or airport hangers to private operators, flying schools. Fuel sales, landing & handling fees for commercial and private aircraft. Renting of terminal space, offices, shops, car rental etc. car parking, passenger charges.

Let's say ryanair come in and have free landing fees, handling services and take zero fuel.

The airport would have to increased staffing numbers in order to met, security, fire service criteria and operations to handle the aircraft turn around.

From this they would have significant gains in car parking, renting space for shop, car rental and possibly charge a support/development charge per passenger, it would also have income from R117, aero club, Atlantic flight training service, renting of hangers, landing fees, fuel sales form private aircraft etc.

Any outstanding balance would then be provided by government via the regional airport fund.

She does to be fair but I always find it mad that her party is in government. This is a local issue and not an EU issue, all she has to do is knock on Martin's door and say "hey this needs to be delivered"

The council's in the south east really need to be pushing for the airport from every angle,

From an FDA angle, ease of access to factories and plants, I've seen it with some of the big companies in ireland where workers and ceo types fly in to dublin have a short trip to the plant have their meetings or do their work and they are back on a flight,and back home in no time,sometimes the same day, they don’t want to take a flight and then a two hour drive or train ride to where they work,

I genuinely believe Waterford and the South east gets crossed off the list of places where the big names like Pfizer and Johnson &Johnson want to set up for this reason.

And from a tourist angle,

The wild Atlantic way has been an huge success project, unfortunately to detriment of the south east, when tourists come over that is all they want to see nearly, when they come into Dublin they either go straight to galway or down the motorway to Cork where the WAW starts, cutting off the south east.

When they come in from rosslare the southeast is just the area they need to get past to get to the WAW,very few consider stopping here as it's just considered the last leg of their travelling before there holiday starts.

Traveled from Dublin on the train this week and was sat next to 3 business people who had come from Germany & UK. Landed in Dublin Airport first I could hear them talking about the lack of a train service from DUB and then the fact that they knew Waterford had an airport but it was not operational for passenger aircraft. They were attending a business meeting and they were discussing how more convenient it would have been to be able to fly into Waterford itself. WAT will bring investment and jobs. We need to stop listening to people talking down the airport. It comes from a Dublin all mentality.

i find this utterly bizarre. I don't know of any businesses who send their employees to meetings without arranging private transport. I mean in what world would you send 3 executive to Ireland and then tell them to hop on the airlink. It's absurd.

I find it utterly bizarre that someone from Dublin is so hell bent against an Airport 190 kilometres away from Dublin airport getting a runway extension.

Belfast has two airports. Maybe Dublin would like another one. South East then would have a choice of the two Dublin airports.

Belfast has two crap airports with a poor choice of destinations and high fares, which is why so many nordies come down to Dublin to fly. The city would be better off closing one of them, which means economies of scale, which means lower charges, which means lower fares, which means more passengers, which means more destinations and even lower fares.

It wouldn't even come close, it would rely on millions in state funding year on year to maintain the two flights. This is why the €12m (if that is even still the number) for the runway extension is a red herring and there's no desire from Government to commit. It would be a money pit. It's also why MOL made the comments he did, he knows there's no viability at Waterford, now or ever.

To put it into context Knock deals with over 5000 commercial passenger flights a year, all jet services from Aer Lingus, Ryanair and some charters, charges departing passengers €10 each on site and still requires some subvention to balance the books. Kerry has about half that and makes decent money catering for private jets associated with the golf/tourism industry there, and again still needs some subvention to survive.

So you can probably begin to imagine the level of subvention that would be required to maintain jet operations at Waterford, almost all of the same overheads - fire, runway maintenance etc etc, and all for two flights a day, so significantly lower commercial income from passengers using the facility. It's just a massive financial black hole for the government, and extremely difficult to justify when there's direct motorway access in under two hours from Waterford to the largest airport in the state. The numbers just don't add up any way you look at it.

Are you talking about me? I'm from Kilkenny, born and reared. I'm certainly not having strong feelings about the airport extension one way or another so I'm not sure how you got the impression I was hell bent on anything. I simply pointed out it's unlikely to be high on the agenda for the multinationals currently in the city, or those thinking about locating there. Waterford is less than 2 hours drive times from two large airports, that box is ticked. I have little to add on any other arguments for or against.

TBF if the airport was based in south Kilkenny it might be far more accessible to neighbouring counties.

And this is why there will never be joined up thinking in the south east. I couldn’t care less if we had Michael Lowry Airport as long as it worked for the area.

Well no, an airport in kilkenny is neither financially viable nor required. Why would Kilkenny need an airport when I can get to Dublin airport within 2 hours? I mean we're not kids who just have to have the latest cool toy from santa.

To the poster saying there's no motorway to cork. you are correct. I poorly worded my post. I mean you could read for the M8 if motorway was you're preferred way of travel but there's no benefit time wise. It still takes less than 2 hours to reach cork airport though.

I do not speak for the entire county of kilkenny. I feel this is important to say as you seem to have a lot of animosity towards the county as a whole

Private jets don't need an extended runway.