DAA Says Ryanair Shannon Deal Not Workable

kilburn

Shannon Airport is a gem of an airport and needs to be in private ownership or at least have an independent board. The potential is unbelievable out there, it is dying a death but yet still won a prestigious award that says it all ! There are other things that could be done to the airport to entice people to visit it let alone fly from it.

Anyone considered the idea of selling the airport to Ryanair?
Fact - Ryanair want to go longhaul to the states.
Fact - Shannon ideal for this closest airport to the states.
Fact - Pre clearence speeds up turnaround times faster than Dublin pre clearence
Fact - South West are a massive airline in the states and the Ryanair business model is based on it, so the americans would use the Ryanair model. Possiblities of traffic numbers into Shannon are massive at least 2-3m passengers a year.
Fact - Ryanair had 42 routes to Europe at their peak, sell them the airport and they would flood Europe with routes.
We may not own the airport anymore but 5-6m passengers a year would make the Retail, Tourism and industry region in the Midwest Limerick Clare area boom and a long term boom at that. Jobs and money thats what it boils down too.

dr.fuzzenstein

BnB wrote: »

I'd agree completely. He is currently just using Shannon Airport as another stick to beat the DAA with in the media.

he's not beating them anywhere near hard enough.

kilburn

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

he's not beating them anywhere near hard enough.

We want to see him draw blood !

highlydebased

Ryanair get fed up and piss of at a moments notice then and leave us with nothing. That would not be a wise plan, kilburn

kilburn

what exactly is not a wise plan?

ClareVisitor

I think that the point is if Ryanair will pull out of an airport at the drop of a hat then what would stop them closing down the whole airport if they owned it based on O'Leary's whim?

kilburn

If you owned an airport and paid 300m plus for it and it was busy why would you close it ?

dasium

While Ryanair muted the idea of going Longhaul a number of years ago they haven't mentioned it recently... higher fuel costs/ plus inability to source aircraft at the rates they were able too after 9/11 which contributed to their short haul expansion are contributing factors. They also muted that if they were to go long haul it would have to be under a different guise.. or a subsidiary... which was the attraction with Aer Lingus, with its existing fleet, network and name... and most importantly it was cheap.

They have also kept very closely to their stated business plan and other than a dalliance with Baldoyle as a alternative to Terminal 2 in Dublin they have never sought/looked into going into ownership of an Airport (to the best of my knowledge)

kilburn

Ryanair sniffed around stansted when the english courts decided to split up BAA but that was challenged in the high courts by BAA and over turned. It was appealed to the supreme court last week and it was upheld that BAA should be split up so watch this space

Lady Chatterton

More pain ahead for Shannon Airport according to an article in today's "Examiner".


http://www.examiner.ie/business/warning-of-more-pain-for-shannon-airport-147372.html

kilburn

I would not take anything a Cork paper says seriously amazing how they sensationalised that when at the very same briefing he also said that Shannons losses were stabilising and it would be back in profit in two years. Amazing what spin you can put on a story if you nit pick a few words.

Lady Chatterton

kilburn wrote: »

I would not take anything a Cork paper says seriously amazing how they sensationalised that when at the very same briefing he also said that Shannons losses were stabilising and it would be back in profit in two years. Amazing what spin you can put on a story if you nit pick a few words.

Might interest you to know that the journalist who wrote the story for the "Examiner" actually lives in Co. Clare.

kilburn

Well if he does he should be doing the positive story rather than the more pain crap

Lady Chatterton

kilburn wrote: »

Well if he does he should be doing the positive story rather than the more pain crap

IMO the role of a good journalist is to report objectively and impartially. It is not his job to promote the county he lives in.

kilburn

exactly i agree with you but where is the objectivity and impartiality its a one sided negative story ignoring the positive news and comments that would have made it impartial, constructive and balanced.

Lady Chatterton

To be fair,the journalist was merely reporting on comments made by the chairman of the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), David Dilger. It would appear that Mr. Dilger has a poor impression of Shannon Airport not the reporter.

kilburn

kilburn wrote: »

I would not take anything a Cork paper says seriously amazing how they sensationalised that when at the very same briefing he also said that Shannons losses were stabilising and it would be back in profit in two years. Amazing what spin you can put on a story if you nit pick a few words.

I rest my case i was there i heard what was said and other papers have reported it accurately

Lady Chatterton

I read the Clare Champion and their report was along the same lines. I don't not have any vested interest here, other than I want Shannon Airport to be successful. Lets face it so many of us rely on it for our living.

dr.fuzzenstein

Well, we'll see how much longer the Shannon deal remains "unworkable".
Many things are impossible until someone makes them possible.
http://www.clarepeople.com/wordp5/201103035454/sos-for-shannon/

ClareVisitor

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Well, we'll see how much longer the Shannon deal remains "unworkable".
Many things are impossible until someone makes them possible.
http://www.clarepeople.com/wordp5/201103035454/sos-for-shannon/

The article comes across as a big PR exercise for Ryanair. I was looking at the links at the bottom of that article and there's one about Ryanair closing the Shannon-Paris route even though it was making money. Is that the approach of a sensible business? That was done out of spite.

While I would agree that DAA don't necessarily serve Shannon's best interests I wouldn't say going back to over-dependency on Ryanair would be any better.

dr.fuzzenstein

ClareVisitor wrote: »

The article comes across as a big PR exercise for Ryanair. I was looking at the links at the bottom of that article and there's one about Ryanair closing the Shannon-Paris route even though it was making money. Is that the approach of a sensible business? That was done out of spite.

While I would agree that DAA don't necessarily serve Shannon's best interests I wouldn't say going back to over-dependency on Ryanair would be any better.

Fair enough, but what about Aer Lingus closing the Shannon-London route?
It was making money and was transferred to Belfast where it turned out it wasn't doing as well as predicted.
This was nothing but an exercise in cuddling up to the North and Shannon be damned.
The problem with business in general is that the exercise is to make money, capitalism has evolved to the stage where profit is everything and the employee, customer, ancillary businesses, the population and premises (e.g. airport) and it's landlord do not matter in the slightest.
It's not an ideal world and we have not made it that way, but we have to try and get on within the existing system.
That means doing business with anyone who will have us, they're all as bad as each other I'm sure...

Whats happening

The other issue that some seem to overlook with Ryanair, is that while he states a % increase in the number of passangers, he is not always talking about additional passangers.
So instead of increasing overall passangers at the airport he will just take a share out of Aer Lingus passangers, by offering cheaper flights on the same routes, with SAA / DAA picking up the bill to the tune of €4.70 per person..And if things don't go his way he'll cut and run again.

ClareVisitor

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Fair enough, but what about Aer Lingus closing the Shannon-London route?
It was making money and was transferred to Belfast where it turned out it wasn't doing as well as predicted.
This was nothing but an exercise in cuddling up to the North and Shannon be damned.
The problem with business in general is that the exercise is to make money, capitalism has evolved to the stage where profit is everything and the employee, customer, ancillary businesses, the population and premises (e.g. airport) and it's landlord do not matter in the slightest.
It's not an ideal world and we have not made it that way, but we have to try and get on within the existing system.
That means doing business with anyone who will have us, they're all as bad as each other I'm sure...

Sorry for this question Doc, I haven't been flying for a couple of years because of small kids, we have been coming over on the boat. Hasn't Aer Lingus always operated a Shannon-Heathrow route? And looking at their website, they're starting up Shannon-Gatwick again in a couple of weeks time. I agree that moving routes from Shannon to Belfast was ridiculous, it's not like they're next to each other and serving the same people. If they were being undercut to such an extent by Ryanair flying Shannon to London that they were losing money then I can't see what option they had, but to stop flying those routes. This just shows the Ryanair model in its true colours though, aggressively cut prices to force others out of the market, jack up those prices again once they have an effective monopoly and then jump ship when they can't screw even more money out of the airport.

As for business in general, yes, it's screwed up at the moment, companies don't take anything but the short-term view. That's why I'm advocating a longer-term view for Shannon to build routes more slowly, but with airlines that can see there's a future for their routes (that means a partnership between the airport, co. councils in the west and tourism agencies) and that the airport isn't going to go running to Ryanair with a ridiculous "incentive" that will make their routes loss-making by allowing O'Leary to undercut them once again.

I remember paying £100 or so return a time when flying London Heathrow-Shannon several times a year with Aer Lingus before Ryanair came on the scene; easier to get to Heathrow than Stansted, better service, assigned seats without the scrum getting on the plane, free snack, proper check-in, bags included in the price and I didn't see anything wrong with it. I've just done a quick check on the Ryanair website, to book a return flight in June for me with one bag Stansted-Shannon is £93. For that £7 (say £12 adjusted for inflation) I'd rather have the service. Companies like Ryanair have reduced an airline trip to a dreary tedious process which has to be suffered, a race to the bottom for no appreciable discount, but which their PR machine makes people think they're getting a great deal.

phill106

ClareVisitor wrote: »

Sorry for this question Doc, I haven't been flying for a couple of years because of small kids, we have been coming over on the boat. Hasn't Aer Lingus always operated a Shannon-Heathrow route?

No, they took a gamble on belfast being more profitable then an already profitable shannon route. It wasn't.


http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/aer-lingus-expected-to-end-shannonheathrow-service-1052592.html

ClareVisitor

phill106 wrote: »

No, they took a gamble on belfast being more profitable then an already profitable shannon route. It wasn't.


http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/aer-lingus-expected-to-end-shannonheathrow-service-1052592.html

Cheers phill. A stupid decision on their part as well then.

dr.fuzzenstein

ClareVisitor wrote: »

Sorry for this question Doc, I haven't been flying for a couple of years because of small kids, we have been coming over on the boat. Hasn't Aer Lingus always operated a Shannon-Heathrow route? And looking at their website, they're starting up Shannon-Gatwick again in a couple of weeks time. I agree that moving routes from Shannon to Belfast was ridiculous, it's not like they're next to each other and serving the same people. If they were being undercut to such an extent by Ryanair flying Shannon to London that they were losing money then I can't see what option they had, but to stop flying those routes. This just shows the Ryanair model in its true colours though, aggressively cut prices to force others out of the market, jack up those prices again once they have an effective monopoly and then jump ship when they can't screw even more money out of the airport..

Couldn't respond any earlier, there was a Shannon Heathrow route which was cancelled and reinstated as pointed out above.
I for one am glad for Ryanair, because they turned the tables on the Airlines, it used to be "oh, this flight is really expensive, you sure you can afford it?"
Then they'd sniff at you while telling you how many hundreds, sometimes even thousands, it would cost for you to fly with them.
When you complained it was too expensive they'd sneer "well, you shouldn't fly then" at you.
Ryanair is a classic example of someone who dared to do things different in a lazy, uncompetitive market that was basically stagnant, where few players had divided up the cake between themselves and they where calling the shots.
Ryanair went through them like a Vindaloo followed by Turbo Lax .
Of course now Ryanair is the dominant player and dictates the market to some extend.
Maybe there's already someone else gunning for their position?