Future of Regional Airports after Inter-Urban Motorway Completion

Galway has got to be in desperate trouble now that the M6 is fully operational. If you take out flights to Dublin, there is little else left there anyway (just Edinburgh, Luton and Manchester), it cannot handle 737s and is unlikely to ever be able to, and with Aer Arann and Aer Lingus now in cahoots, I don't see Aer Lingus' new regional venture moving into Galway. It will probably stay open for island hopping etc., but has little future otherwise.

Sligo only has flights to Dublin, as long as they're subsidised they'll keep going, if the subsidies are pulled Sligo will go too.

Donegal is similar to Sligo but it has a flight to Glasgow because of the historical connection there. It will probably just about keep going as is.

Knock should be OK, its a long way from Dublin and has a huge catchment area. It is also surprisingly profitable as an airport. Its long runway is a great advantage to it compared to the other regionals. But even still passenger numbers there are only just about holding steady at around 600,000 to 700,000.

Shannon, although not a regional, has huge issues as well. With the Ryanair service reduction it is apparantly a ghost town after lunch once the transatlantics leave, and Aer Lingus are still considering major cutbacks there also for the coming winter.

Further south of that I'm not so well up on. Cork and Waterford should have decent catchment areas and Kerry seem to be keeping a few Ryanair flights going.

But Galway will be the big loser from the motorway expansion, because it is now so easy to get from Galway city and the east of the County to Dublin. The road to Shannon is also coming along very well.

If it had genuinely been 2006 that the interurbans were finished, and M18 was also complete by now, Shannon Airport would have been far more viable regardless of how the smaller regional airports would have gone (even at present there seems little point in Galway and with an M18 and M17 to Tuam, even Knock wouldn't have been viable if Shannon still actually had flights available)

So I would in fact have welcomed the motorways from this perspective too.

Chris: Shannon should have more European destinations - why should the entire Midwest and West have to travel to Dublin? (Cork is less of an option as it's on the wrong side of the city, has less destinations and the N20 is a goat track with less public transport options).

Zoney wrote: »

Chris: Shannon should have more European destinations - why should the entire Midwest and West have to travel to Dublin? (Cork is less of an option as it's on the wrong side of the city, has less destinations and the N20 is a goat track with less public transport options).

Agreed. But if the M20 was built and the CNRR done (also Dunkettle) then Shannon and Cork airports are only about 1h15m from each other.

rainbowdash wrote: »

Ideally one airport somewhere in the midlands with good road and rail links to all areas would be the best but this will never happen.

Airports work best when located beside cities because that's where the demand is. Having an airport that's equally accessible for the entire country but relatively inaccessible for cities would be a disaster.

Besides, we don't do good rail links in this country

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

I find it unlikely people from the Dublin urban area will choose a Knock or a Shannon above using Dublin airport.

Exactly. The queues in Dublin Airport might be a pain but I can get from my apartment to a departure gate in 55 minutes and from wheels down to my apartment in 28 minutes. Even if the queues were much, much worse, there's no saving at all in going to another airport.

Thanks to veryangryman for starting this thread. It may have been my comment in the M9 thread that you refer to ... but this is now well worth discussing with MIUs due to complete this year.

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

The only thing which is a bigger waste of money in Irish Aviation besides PSOs is grants to minor airports for things like runway extensions, Let Waterford airport pay for it themselves rather then relying on pork from the state.

I have no problem with (sustainable) regional airports getting some capital grants from time to time. It's current expenditure pork (in the form of PSOs) that I have a problem with. Anyway, did I hear somewhere that the EU might take a look at these again now that we have good roads in this country.

If so, I think Sligo, Donegal and Galway are finished.

Our friends in the North are building a new dual carriageway from Derry to its airport, so that can cater for Donegal/Sligo. People from the West can go to Knock.

KevR wrote: »

I have never flown from Knock because there is no public transport to/from the airport and their flight options always seemed rather poor even compared to Shannon.

Sorry Kev, you are misinformed. Bus Eireann have at last taken the very sensible decision to route their no. 64 Galway to Sligo bus via Knock airport, so there are now seven direct public transport services per day.

KevR wrote: »

When the M18 Gort-Crusheen opens I think Shannon should be rebranded as 'Limerick-Galway Airport'. In all honesty, how many tourists would actually want to go to Shannon.

Good idea. When Gort->Tuam completes, Shannon will be probably 45 minutes from Galway. Also, the Shannon tunnel will make it more attractive for people from the likes of Tipperary, Offaly and north Kerry.

However, I also take the point about how empty Shannon seems now. I flew from there recently and the place is like a big empty barn.

Kerry and Waterford airports I'm not so sure about. It's impressive that Waterford has never had a PSO and still survives. However, it only has one operator and that's Aer Arann - should anything happen to it, there might be a different story. If the airport does succeed in getting its runway extension it would be able to open the airport up to others (and not just Ryanair - BMI Baby or Easyjet for example). I can't see it getting the runway extension for a number of years, specially with Martin Cullen now out of politics.

As well as which, what will the impact of improved journey times to Dublin mean for the airport? If the likes of GoBus started doing a motorway service direct from Waterford to Dublin Airport how would that impact?

Kerry still has a PSO and (until May) only one operator - Ryanair. We've seen what they can do with Shannon, and their volatility makes them unreliable. However, Kerry does have a 737-capable runway, so that does offer them the option of landing another carrier should Ryanair pull out. They also have an impressive list of Bus Eireann connections. (Of course, if they got their heads together down there, the railway station could be moved a few hundred yards to right outside the airport. Making it the only airport with a train connection in the country ). And while some parts of it are good, the state of the N22 around Macroom and Ballyvourney, as well as remaining roundabouts on the Cork SRR, make Kerry people think twice about using Cork.

SXL should be the one under greatest threat. The BE change to serve NOC directly ex Sligo combined with the cost and environmental impact of extending the SXL runway into the harbour wetlands should be curtains.

A terrific deal could have been done at the height of the boom. Move Air Corps HQ to SNN from Baldonnel (closed and developed), with government flights based at DUB and rotary army/garda support going to the Curragh. The crosswind runway at SNN could have been rebuilt from the proceeds, with US trooping flights going through the military facility rather than the main passenger terminal. You could still do it but the net proceeds from Baldonnel would be substantially lower as you still have to remediate fuel spills etc. first and the demand for building land has vaporised.

Ireland West Airport - Transport Links

Galway-Sligo-Donegal bus route 64 has been stopping at Ireland West since February, but it seems to be a half hearted "trial" by Bus Eireann and a lot less than the originally promised 6 routes. With over 630,000 using the airport in 2008, and almost continuous growth in routes over 10 years including 4 more Ryanair routes this year, it is beyond belief that there is was no public transport in place before 2010 for tourists arriving in the West, especially with hundreds of Bus Eireann buses passing the airport gate or within 15 minutes detour on N17/N5 weekly. On one occasion last summer all hire cars and taxis were booked out at Knock and there were a lot of tourists left stranded wondering where was the island of welcomes.

Bus Eireann did announced 6 routes serving Westport, Ballina, Donegal, Sligo, Derry and Galway would be linked via the airport back in 2005. It was publicised in the media and large decals printed on the side of western buses and ministers back clapping on the radio. The airport built a bus stop and changed the entrance gates to suit BE, but by 2007 nothing had happened and with local TDs and the airport starting to grumble it was "sanctioned" again by the DOT in a pre election stunt with more media and celebratory press releases.

Again nothing happened. Bus Eireann launched several routes from the west to Dublin airport, including Sligo, Ballina, and hundreds of scheduled and private services through Cork and Shannon were added. Last year the airport told Dempsey they would have to make their own plans if something didn't happen and within a few months the Galway bus was announced. So either our elected transport officials are completely incompetent, time wasting idiots, or there was some political lobby who didn't like the growth at Ireland West.

The image below was a mockup from another discussion to show how easily existing transport modes and airports could be integrated today to give the West a basic public transport system at virtually no cost.