Best little international airport

pedroThePirate

Point taken.

Unreserved apologies, Clareman.

Chris

dr.fuzzenstein

Clareman wrote: »

Back on topic folks, this is about Shannon Airport, not Irish politics/history

Well (to get back on topic:)), let's hope the slashing of the tourist tax to E3 down from E10 will do the trick. The ball is now in Ryanair's court and Mr O'Leary can now prove if he's not just all mouth and no trousers.
According to him, this was one of the main reasons that most flights got pulled from Shannon, so now it's time for him to put his money where his mouth is (should fit several Boeings into that trap of his;)) and reinstate those flights.

CptSternn

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Well (to get back on topic:)), let's hope the slashing of the tourist tax to E3 down from E10 will do the trick. The ball is now in Ryanair's court and Mr O'Leary can now prove if he's not just all mouth and no trousers.
According to him, this was one of the main reasons that most flights got pulled from Shannon, so now it's time for him to put his money where his mouth is (should fit several Boeings into that trap of his;)) and reinstate those flights.

You can't blame O'Leary for the mess in Shannon. The €10 tax is insane, especially since it only applies to some airports in the country, excluding Dublin. When you can get a return trip to mainland Europe for under €20, a €10 tax is 50% of the price. That is on top of the other taxes you are paying, which makes it even more insane. It was a tool designed by the DAA to further drive down the usage of all airports, except Dublin.

therecklessone

CptSternn wrote: »

You can't blame O'Leary for the mess in Shannon. The €10 tax is insane, especially since it only applies to some airports in the country, excluding Dublin. When you can get a return trip to mainland Europe for under €20, a €10 tax is 50% of the price. That is on top of the other taxes you are paying, which makes it even more insane. It was a tool designed by the DAA to further drive down the usage of all airports, except Dublin.

A little fact checking wouldn't go amiss.

The €10 tax was designed by the Minister of Finance as a revenue gathering exercise in his 2009 Budget, not by the DAA.

In an effort to protect domestic routes within Ireland, a lower rate of €2 was to be applied to flights which were more than 300km from the departure airport. When it was pointed out that this meant Dublin flights to many UK destinations would qualify for the lower rate while flights from other Irish airports would not, that was changed to any destination within 300km of Dublin regardless of point of departure

The recent budget has reduced the tax as a temporary measure to a flat rate of €3 (effectively increasing it by €1 for a good many of the routes served by Shannon: Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, and Birmingham) though some would say this was in response to the European authorities taking a case against Ireland for the two-tier tax in place.

In summation, flights from Dublin pay the same travel tax as flights from Shannon.

pedroThePirate

Isn't the salient point about RyanAir that they elected to
base their operations at Stansted for several identifiable
commercial reasons ?

• O'Leary wanted a viable European hub which had decent
rail/road links into other major transport infrastructure
networks which Shannon lacked due to (obvious) purely
geographic reasons.

• The UK Government must have put a good proposal on
the table for him.

• He wanted consolidated operations in the maintenance,
fuel supply and support fields, which Ireland could not give him.

• RyanAir have long had their eye on the lucrative
pan-European freight market into the newly expanded EU and
its fast-growing ex-eastern bloc satellites, and Stansted
will give them a turnkey cargo handling facility.

Chris

amiable

pedroThePirate wrote: »

Isn't the salient point about RyanAir that they elected to
base their operations at Stansted for several identifiable
commercial reasons ?

• O'Leary wanted a viable European hub which had decent
rail/road links into other major transport infrastructure
networks which Shannon lacked due to (obvious) purely
geographic reasons.

• The UK Government must have put a good proposal on
the table for him.

• He wanted consolidated operations in the maintenance,
fuel supply and support fields, which Ireland could not give him.

• RyanAir have long had their eye on the lucrative
pan-European freight market into the newly expanded EU and
its fast-growing ex-eastern bloc satellites, and Stansted
will give them a turnkey cargo handling facility.

Chris

Nothing to do with Stansted having around 20million people living within commutement distance from the airport?

pedroThePirate

amiable wrote: »

Nothing to do with Stansted having around 20million people living within commutement distance from the airport?

Actually, no.

That would simply predicate the number of flight originations and
terminations operated by RyanAir from Stansted; a totally
different set of marketing decisions, which could be implemented
from any base of operations, based on revenue stream. RyanAir
could be based in Bangalore and still operate 1000 flights out of
Stansted.

The points I raised related to the pulling out of Shannon as a
support and linked-in hub to European opportunities.


Chris

kilburn

Back on topic, recently the DAA said it would try to find the 7m for the Lynx hub, that would be a major boost to the airport and region

ClareVisitor

Good news about the new Aer Lingus Gatwick service starting up from Shannon. Adding these services piecemeal as they become required and viable is the way to build a sustainable airport rather than a big bang approach a la Ryanair a few years ago with one company opening up loads of routes all of a sudden and making the airport reliant on them.

O'Leary took the Ryanair routes away because he wasn't getting the ridiculous deal he wanted from the airport. He wanted to fly from Shannon for nothing, it's their business model and no-one should be surprised, it's happened in many a European airport. Good riddance is what I say, if he wants to come back fine, but he pays what everyone else pays.

dr.fuzzenstein

ClareVisitor wrote: »

Good news about the new Aer Lingus Gatwick service starting up from Shannon. Adding these services piecemeal as they become required and viable is the way to build a sustainable airport rather than a big bang approach a la Ryanair a few years ago with one company opening up loads of routes all of a sudden and making the airport reliant on them.

O'Leary took the Ryanair routes away because he wasn't getting the ridiculous deal he wanted from the airport. He wanted to fly from Shannon for nothing, it's their business model and no-one should be surprised, it's happened in many a European airport. Good riddance is what I say, if he wants to come back fine, but he pays what everyone else pays.

Shannon really is only serving a few destinations in the UK and the US and that is fine for the average Irish person to whom this is the entire world.
But as European destinations go it is woeful.
Did you know that there are absolutely NO flights to the whole of Germany from Shannon?
So, all the business people and tourists who could come here and leave their money end up in Dublin and then mostly say "Why don't I just stay here?".
It's a very Irish attitude to say "well fcuk you then, we don't need you, we're grand here, thanks", but at a time when visitor numbers have plunged 1 MILLION and we are in the depths of a recession we can afford this attitude?
Would it not be better to say "we need every visitor we can get, let's encourage them?"
You can say "If you don't like it, fcuk off", something I have heard many, many times.
And he didn't like. And he did fcuk off.
Is it really better to have empty pubs, empty B&B's, empty units in Shannon Ind Est, empty beaches and soon enough people will start abandoning houses again.
You showed him alright!

ClareVisitor

Well doc, I can't comment on the partoculars of flights to Germany as I know nothing about it. Do you think the demand is there for Shannon-Germany flights? If so, it seems the airlines are missing a trick, I'm sure Shannon would welcome the business if ti were proposed. Are there any German carriers that might pick up the route?

kilburn

By right I firmly believe that if there was maybe a twice or three times a week flight to Rome, Berlin, Madrid or Barcelona and maybe Moscow and Amsterdam they would be full. I think with the 1m catchement area there is plenty of scope.
Can anyone remember what the routes were that Virgin operated that were always busy there was Birmingham and Brussels but what were the rest?

bossman07

Was down at the airport this evening never took any notice last time i was there but tonight wa sstunned to see how empty the car parks were ,the place is like a ghost town and dying on its feet ,total waste of a finelittle airport

CptSternn

Lets hope people remember this around election time.

Lady Chatterton

CptSternn wrote: »

Lets hope people remember this around election time.

Couldn't agree more but there has always been a blinding loyalty to FF in Co. Clare. Lisbon Treaty (round one) is a fine example. When most counties in Ireland rejected it first time, the boys and girls in Clare voted for it. It is sad to see the airport being downgraded year after year, a bit like our county hospital. We have to hope that the next election brings some change.

highlydebased

MrsD007 wrote: »

Couldn't agree more but there has always been a blinding loyalty to FF in Co. Clare. Lisbon Treaty (round one) is a fine example. When most counties in Ireland rejected it first time, the boys and girls in Clare voted for it. It is sad to see the airport being downgraded year after year, a bit like our county hospital. We have to hope that the next election brings some change.

Like I've said before the airport has not been downgraded! Airlines (i.e Ryanair) have reduced their operations massively, that is all that has occured. The airport is still capable of what it was.

Election time? Political pressure is NOT how a commercial enterprise should operate. Putting pressure on airlines from a political viewpoint is really not on.

Lady Chatterton

I disagree. The travel tax introduced by the present government was used by Ryanair to reduce its flights out of Shannon.

highlydebased

MrsD007 wrote: »

I disagree. The travel tax introduced by the present government was used by Ryanair to reduce its flights out of Shannon.

It was used as a cover up for the fact that Ryanair had a difficulty generating a profit with a certain cohort of routes- mostly European cities. Thats not to say others were not profitable- Spain etc.

That is why Ryanair offered to operate a smaller base if they were given free fees. The airport operates on a commercial basis and were right to decline to offer them same.

But my point still stands, the airport has not been downgraded, it has just seen a reduction in services!

KindOfIrish

Neon-Circles wrote: »

But my point still stands, the airport has not been downgraded, it has just seen a reduction in services!

forever...i afraid

Claregirl

People seem to forget the political decision to take a profitable route from Shannon to Heathrow and move it to Belfast - that and the fact that the travel tax imposed had a more severe impact on Shannon than on Dublin due to the extra distance - it crippled a lot of the UK routes. If that's not downgrading I don't know what is.

There has been no investment in Shannon and yet look at the likes of Knock, Cork etc how many people from Clare, Limerick and Tipp travel from these airports because they don't have the opportunity to fly from Shannon?

Shannon has so much going for it.... Like the fact that it's not prone to Fog!! Oh and during the recent bad weather which airport remained open?

One of the main problems in my opinion is that no one seems to be selling Shannon as the "best little international airport" .

dr.fuzzenstein

Claregirl wrote: »

People seem to forget the political decision to take a profitable route from Shannon to Heathrow and move it to Belfast - that and the fact that the travel tax imposed had a more severe impact on Shannon than on Dublin due to the extra distance - it crippled a lot of the UK routes. If that's not downgrading I don't know what is.

There has been no investment in Shannon and yet look at the likes of Knock, Cork etc how many people from Clare, Limerick and Tipp travel from these airports because they don't have the opportunity to fly from Shannon?

Shannon has so much going for it.... Like the fact that it's not prone to Fog!! Oh and during the recent bad weather which airport remained open?

One of the main problems in my opinion is that no one seems to be selling Shannon as the "best little international airport" .

Yep, Shannon wasn't downgraded, it was just deliberately ruined by bad decisions designed to cripple it by people whose interests lay elsewhere. But not downgraded.
The difference is simple semantics.
I have to say that there has been massive investment, when I came here first in '93 Shannon was nothing like it is today, it has changed beyond all recognition.
And even back then it was about 10 times grander than that shed in a field that calls itself Kerry Airport.
I was going to say Kerry is doing well despite all this, but it seems they're not.
Government subsidies for all those cowsheds with runways is going to be cut or withdrawn soon, so we can see who really has right stuff and who will die on it's arse.
There may even be a resurgence for Shannon, who knows?
But only if the DAA is ready to make decisions that will take the butter off their bread.
Unlikely.
Shannon is a great little airport with nice facilities and it's very little stress going through it.
Meanwhile I'll fly from Dublin. Or Kerry.

kilburn

Kerry has based its success on the charter business, so this is where the board should like for new business

chucken1

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0117/shannon_edinburgh.html

highlydebased

kilburn wrote: »

Kerry has based its success on the charter business, so this is where the board should like for new business

We have had more charter flights than Kerry year in year out- they've a weekly flight to Palma and Lanzarote? (One or two more probably) Hardly a roaring success. There have been less charter flights across the nation for obvious reasons in recent years yet we still manage more charters. A growing number of travel agents book people on scheduled flights it seems

CptSternn

The DAA is nothing more than a crony quango for FF anyway. Maybe after the next election whoever is voted in will get rid of the current board.

kilburn

Neon-Circles wrote: »

We have had more charter flights than Kerry year in year out- they've a weekly flight to Palma and Lanzarote? (One or two more probably) Hardly a roaring success. There have been less charter flights across the nation for obvious reasons in recent years yet we still manage more charters. A growing number of travel agents book people on scheduled flights it seems

Most of the package deals with the travel agents are or were from Kerry that is a fact

Claregirl

Another good news story for shannon:D

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/increase-in-aircraft-diversion-incidents-142392.html

Not so good for the people involved tho:o