Teebor15 wrote: » I've been watching this thread since it started and the amount of uninformed ****e being posted about the airport (most of it by master and commander)was laughable at first but now i feel i have to put more of a realistic spin on the issue..Firstly, Ryanair withdrew services from the airport in the early ninetys because of a change of direction..out went the ATR42 turboprop aircraft in favour of 737s. As correctly pointed out the airport runway cannot at present cater for these aircraft. Ryanair are not in the business of buying airports, but i believe Michael Crawley of Ryanair did stae when asked about Waterford said they would certainly be interested in serving Waterford again if they runway was extended..and the charges were right!!! (nearly nothing, like nearly all airports ryanair serve). In my opionion they would not base an aircraft at Waterford, as of the 100+ destinations they fly only about maybe 30-40 airports are bases..these tend to be large airports. They would probaly do a daily flight to Stansted or Luton with maybe an extra in the summer and possibly a daily or 3 times a week to liverpool. For these flights they would require about 1850m runway and 2000m..if they were to fly to the sun destinations which they probably would if they follow the pattern from Kerry, Knock and Derry. Although relativly few extra flights they could easlily triple the passenger numbers as they use 189 seat plane versus max 70 seat Aerarann aircraft. I believe there would also be space for Aerarann to continue morning evenins servises to london with daily Manchester, Birmingham and add edinburgh and possibly Bristol. These routes are too thin for ryanair aircraft but if Aerarann's deal with AerLingus could be extended to Waterford then these routes would be viable. The claimed 23 million cost of the runway extension is totally misleading. Back when the exchequer was awash with money (2007) the govenment had i think about 60 million designated for regional airport capital development where each airport had put forward their infrastruture requirements to see how it would be divided up. Waterford applied for the runway extension with all the bells and whistles attached, like extra parking space for aircraft, and extra taxiway, much larger terminal. They were thinking.."Lets make the biggest Jump forward in one go that we can" and why not since the money was there..and they were alloocated this money by then minister for Transport Martin Cullen. While the airport were finalising their plans prior to construction..the economy went belly up and money for all capital projects in the country that had not yet gone to tender were suspend then cut completly. Unfortune but thats life..maybe the airport people should have got the finger out and got the project to contruction quickly but the no one thought the money would be pulled or at least not so quickly! The cost now for just a basic neccesary extension just to get on to the bottom rung of a Jet capable airport is i would extimate to be closer to 12-15million. Why so much for a simple extra few loads of tar? Well it not only requires extending but also need to be widened from 30m to 45m and strenghted by overlaying the exsiting ruway with a few more inches so your talking about more than doubling the physical size of the present runway plus add in the basic fixture and fitting which i wont get into here. There are about 450,000 people living in the desiganated South East region when you include Waterford, Kilkenny, Wexford, Carlow and South Tipp. A study has shown that on a time basis it can be as quick from someone from Naas to get from home to airborne out of waterford as it is from Dublin when you you take into account the new Motorway, by-pass new airport road, car parking at terminal door, quick passenger processing due to the small size of Waterford compared to Dublin. This all increases Waterfords catchment area. The airport like all airports in this country except Dublin (And kerry last year who made a 300,000 profit) requires to be subsidized. Waterford is circa less than 1 million per year. Which can be reduced or even eliminated if we were able to get to the Jet runway position like Kerry which is very similiar to Waterford. This subsidy is small compared to the likes of Shannon and Cork. I think there are over 100 jobs supported directly at the airport (including attached avaition bussiness) so i belive 10-15million is a small price to pay to secure these jobs and create many more. Its short sightedness to cut the money The airport "Needs help to help themselves" But we dont have the money so its not going happen in the immediate future.
The airport like all airports in this country except Dublin (And kerry last year who made a 300,000 profit) requires to be subsidized. Waterford is circa less than 1 million per year. Which can be reduced or even eliminated
Teebor15 wrote: » The claimed 23 million cost of the runway extension is totally misleading. Back when the exchequer was awash with money (2007) the govenment had i think about 60 million designated for regional airport capital development where each airport had put forward their infrastruture requirements to see how it would be divided up. Waterford applied for the runway extension with all the bells and whistles attached, like extra parking space for aircraft, and extra taxiway, much larger terminal. They were thinking.."Lets make the biggest Jump forward in one go that we can" and why not since the money was there..and they were alloocated this money by then minister for Transport Martin Cullen. While the airport were finalising their plans prior to construction..the economy went belly up and money for all capital projects in the country that had not yet gone to tender were suspend then cut completly. Unfortune but thats life..maybe the airport people should have got the finger out and got the project to contruction quickly but the no one thought the money would be pulled or at least not so quickly!
Teebor15 wrote: » The cost now for just a basic neccesary extension just to get on to the bottom rung of a Jet capable airport is i would extimate to be closer to 12-15million. Why so much for a simple extra few loads of tar? Well it not only requires extending but also need to be widened from 30m to 45m and strenghted by overlaying the exsiting ruway with a few more inches so your talking about more than doubling the physical size of the present runway plus add in the basic fixture and fitting which i wont get into here.
Teebor15 wrote: » There are about 450,000 people living in the desiganated South East region when you include Waterford, Kilkenny, Wexford, Carlow and South Tipp. A study has shown that on a time basis it can be as quick from someone from Naas to get from home to airborne out of waterford as it is from Dublin when you you take into account the new Motorway, by-pass new airport road, car parking at terminal door, quick passenger processing due to the small size of Waterford compared to Dublin. This all increases Waterfords catchment area.
Teebor15 wrote: » The airport like all airports in this country except Dublin (And kerry last year who made a 300,000 profit) requires to be subsidized. Waterford is circa less than 1 million per year. Which can be reduced or even eliminated if we were able to get to the Jet runway position like Kerry which is very similiar to Waterford. This subsidy is small compared to the likes of Shannon and Cork. I think there are over 100 jobs supported directly at the airport (including attached avaition bussiness) so i belive 10-15million is a small price to pay to secure these jobs and create many more. Its short sightedness to cut the money The airport "Needs help to help themselves" But we dont have the money so its not going happen in the immediate future.
sunnysoutheast wrote: » Out of interest do you know if the airport already owns the land for the extension? (if any land purchase is needed!) SSE
Master and commander wrote: » Its like this imo, there sould be no subsidy for anything. It is subsidising failed and non viable activities which is what has this country f'ed up the hole. If an industry or activity cannot survive on its own and is not financially viable it should be wound up. It is unfair and wasteful to expect the productive sectors of the economy to artificially support failed basket case facilities and companies. State campanies like CIE and HSE are classic examples. State run = badly run and inefficient. Running airports and such is the job of the private companies, not TD's. In short, only the fit should survive. The unfit must go the way of the dinosaur.
Thank goodness for the financial crisis, at least it put an end to disgraceful bouts of political patronage like highlighted. Ireland is a small country, we don't need multiple airports dotted around the place. You realise we're moving away from the state subsidising every 2 bit airport in the state?
If the business case for a runway extension is so good then why can't the airport owners secure private funding? Why do you expect the state to subsidise yet another small airport when in the past few years the DoT has made decisive moves away from this model of funding low pax and commerically unviable airports dotted around the state?
What a useless soounding study, why not provide a link for it? Face facts, the entire SE as you've outlined is within a couple of hours maximum of the main airports in the state by motorway, all of which offer far more in terms of destination choice.
So you want a large subsidy to replace a smaller subsidy? I understand you appear to have a vested interest in seeing your airport succeed, but there's no logic in the DoT withdrawing support from airports like Galway and the PSOs if it's just going to waste money on another small insignificant regional airport
Times have changed, Ireland isn't in the game of providing financial support to every local airport anymore, if you want a runway extension then pay it for yourself rather then expecting mug taxpayers to!
Finnbar01 wrote: » As soon as the airport takes off (no pun intended) we will have unions all over it, like our docks, and before we know it, it will be closed down.
mike65 wrote: » Even Waterford trade unionists are not quite that stupid.
Max Powers wrote: » i dont know, a collection of idiots is what i see of them. Objecting to the Newgate centre which could be providing 100s of jobs now etc etc, they have gone beyond their remit long ago. The unions main goal i would say is to keep the public service running for the benefit of its employees, not the public. see the state of Iarnroid Eireann, education system, health service, dublin bus, ESB, hundreds of quangos for prime examples of pathetic organisations, under efficient, under effective, over staffed, over paid.
Finnbar01 wrote: » Did you know that nobody really knows exactly how many quangos there are in Ireland?
wellboytoo wrote: » We should appoint a consultant to do a report not taking longer than seven monthd to do same, and the report should then be considered by a committee of interested parties that the Minister will appoint in due course.
dayshah wrote: » I wonder if we could get some white peanuts to feed the white elephant.
dayshah wrote: » The trade unions didn't stop the Newgate Centre (though they objected, and their objections were largely upheld). The Newgate Centre was stopped because it was a crap idea and couldn't get finance. Have you ever even looked at the plans?
dayshah wrote: » Also the vast majority of union members in Waterford are in the private sector :rolleyes: .
dayshah wrote: » Waterford held back by people who think a M&S is the cure for all our ills.
fuzzy dunlop wrote: » What was white elephant about it? It was a medium size shopping centre roughly the same size as city square.I looked at the plans and attended the ABP hearing in it's entirety and every word of what you said is untrue. The trade unions objections were not upheld nor were Brendan McCanns. The development that was given planning permission was virtually the same in scale and concept to what was submitted.Brendan McCann himself conceded this. The only reason there was changes made was due to lack of legislation in Ireland on the issues of Shadowing. It was down to ABP being magnanimous towards residents more than anything else. Changes on these grounds could just as easily have been ignored and probably would have been if the consultant that was hired to assess the impact had done his job properly which he clearly didn't. The amount of time this was dragged through the planning process would have seen it built and instead of an empty landbank that the state is probably paying for through Nama you would have a facility earning some revenue. The project did get finance.
dayshah wrote: » If the developer did get finance, how come he didn't build it?
dayshah wrote: » Well obviously you are just lying now. Unless City Square has a 5-star hotel, auditorium, and 'luxury' apartments attached, which I have just so happened to miss every time I was there over the past 20 years or so, then City Square is not roughly the same size as the proposed Newgate development. If the developer did get finance, how come he didn't build it? Because its such a crap idea? Maybe we'd be better off with a half completed building in our city centre, lying idle apart from us as a cider den.
fricatus wrote: » Timing. Along came the credit crunch in 2008 - Lehmans and all that... surely you remember? The Ferrybank SC got built (and it was a comparable development) because it was allowed to proceed, got finance, etc. before the credit crunch came along. That's the only difference! (that, and the fact that McCann and WCTU, etc. thought it was OK for KK County Council to approve a big shopping centre on Waterford's northern fringe and didn't bother to object, while objecting to a more sustainable, better located centre in the city).
merlante wrote: » The fact of the matter is, similar shopping centres are doing well enough, or at least surviving, in much smaller places, like Athlone and Kilkenny. It was not a good time to get finance and if you had finance, it was not a good time to be over leveraging yourself. I don't blame them for not proceeding.
dayshah wrote: » Does the McDonagh Centre have a 5* hotel with spa and leisure centre, auditorium, luxury apartments, rooftop food emporium, and arts and culture centre?(admittedly the spa and leisure centre would be the jacks in City Square) Maybe if a proper plan was lodged in the first instance then there wouldn't have been the delays. If financiers thought it will be profitable then it will be built.
merlante wrote: » So half of that stuff remains closed up for 10 years. Who cares? And half the shopping centre remains unoccupied for 5-10 years. Again, who cares? Better than the current wasteland, taking in such architectural gems as the De La Salle centre. It could and should have been built, and if the 4/5 year planning process had completed even 6 months earlier, it would be there now.
