Waterford Airport.

engiweirdo

A lot of this ****e would be solved by drastically upgrading our rail infrastructure. There shouldnt be any need for an airport in every corner of Ireland. 2 or 3 max should be enough for the population if the transport infrastructure was even half decent. High speed rail lines connecting all the main cities with a central exchange in the midlands somewhere. Bus service to link to regional train stations. Should be no more than an hour between cities here with a proper train service and lines to service airports in Dublin, Cork and Shannon.

One for everyone in the audience is a stupid Irish half solution.

Christy Browne

engiweirdo wrote: »

A lot of this ****e would be solved by drastically upgrading our rail infrastructure. There shouldnt be any need for an airport in every corner of Ireland. 2 or 3 max should be enough for the population if the transport infrastructure was even half decent. High speed rail lines connecting all the main cities with a central exchange in the midlands somewhere. Bus service to link to regional train stations. Should be no more than an hour between cities here with a proper train service and lines to service airports in Dublin, Cork and Shannon.

One for everyone in the audience is a stupid Irish half solution.

Completely agree. Parish pump politics means everyone needs a little piece of the pie given to them rather than look at the bigger picture.

Waterford is still ridiculously neglected by the government though.

JCX BXC

dzilla wrote: »

they are not wrong to be fair, you sensational BS is just incorrect.

Generally when a conversation goes -Sensationalism-sence-agression I bow out.

Saying "who pissed on your cornflakes" and then calling someone a "dope" isn't worthy of a pub debate, nevermind here.

notharrypotter

engiweirdo wrote: »

There shouldnt be any need for an airport in every corner of Ireland.

One for everyone in the audience is a stupid Irish half solution.

Agreed.
We are a small island off the NW of Europe.
Our population is too small and too dispersed.
Some people have unrealistic expectations of what we need as a society and equally important what we can afford.

Muttley79

dzilla wrote: »

they are not wrong to be fair, you sensational BS is just incorrect.

Bullish*t?Explain yourself

914

engiweirdo wrote: »

A lot of this ****e would be solved by drastically upgrading our rail infrastructure. There shouldnt be any need for an airport in every corner of Ireland. 2 or 3 max should be enough for the population if the transport infrastructure was even half decent. High speed rail lines connecting all the main cities with a central exchange in the midlands somewhere. Bus service to link to regional train stations. Should be no more than an hour between cities here with a proper train service and lines to service airports in Dublin, Cork and Shannon.

One for everyone in the audience is a stupid Irish half solution.

Agree with your point regarding a good rail network. Imagine having high speed trains!

This could also stop the sprawl of dublin. People could live far from the capital and reach dublin within an hour. We'll never see it though.

At the moment in Ireland its nearly always as quick to drive than take public transport.

blackwhite

Muttley79 wrote: »

I agree Kerry group has probably a big benefit there to Kerry,we also have glanbia,industrial estate of pharmacuticles and Dawn group on our doorstep to name a few.yeah a route to London is a good starter but with this whole brexit chaos going on I think we need to start looking into maybe berlin Paris Madrid ourselves,but hey we need to get a runway extension first and a carrier like Ryanair to fly from there first of all.god only knows what the future will bring to unlocking Waterford potential

Glanbia is in Kilkenny. Approx 90 min to Dublin by road so the there’s no real time saving from flying from Waterford.
Dawn doesn’t have the overseas presence to drive enough travel for an airport either.

Might sound harsh - but that’s exactly how any businesses will look at it too.

Talk of Madrid, Paris, etc sounds great, but it’s not a realistic business plan foundation.

A solid feeder route to a major international hub is what WAT needs to be a sustainable airport. Other routes might follow afterwards, but without an anchor route the airport will repeat the failures of the past.

Waterford needs multiple local businesses to buy in and support for an airport to be sustainable - KIR has local businesses who commit to a minimum seat take on KIR-DUB which keep the link viable. WAT needs something similar to get a base route locked in.
Get that sorted and everything else can follow from that.

marno21

Dawn Meats Group have their own plane based in Waterford which seems to be constantly in the air. EI-DMG

This likely meets most of their travel requirements

blackwhite

Dum_Dum wrote: »

No so much any more. Increasing congestion on the M7/N7 and M50, or the possibility of it, means the time allocated for an outbound journey should be at least 50% longer than the actual ideal conditions journey time (2hrs 20mins).


For a typical departure you should add check in time (90min) + journey time (140 min) + congestion penalty (70min) = 5hrs. You should leave at 8am for a 1pm departure. That's half a day just to get to the Airport. Of course return journeys are not subject to strict arrival times.



What about public transport? All coaches from Waterford to Dublin Airport run via Dublin City Centre, exasperating the problem as they are subject to congestion on the North Quays in Dublin as well as the M50, M7/N7.


My point is - access to Dublin Airport is becoming increasingly unreliable due to delays brought on by worsening traffic volumes in the Dublin region.


Nobody minds this occasional carry-on for the odd long-haul flight, but for short trips to Britain and near-Europe it is completely unacceptable. For this, all other regions can avail of their local airport for business commuting flights.

Talk of multiple routes from WAT across Europe is pie-in-the-sky nonsense.
The airport can be viable with a key route to a major hub. Pretending it could become a hub for flights to lots of different destinations is fantasy land stuff, and does nothing but damage efforts to reopen the airport as a viable business.

There’s a limited local market where WAT makes more sense than DUB for short haul travel on a time basis. It’s not enough to sustain full operations, or even to sustain a handful of routes to minor locations (as demonstrated time and again by those who have tried). Aircraft size isn’t the problem - it’s consistently been a proved of PAX numbers and load factors.

Ireland simply isn’t big enough to sustain competing airports within 2 hours journey of each other. The M7 works won’t carry on forever, and you can’t plan strategic infrastructure on the basis of disruption from some 24-month roadworks.
If WAT is to be viable, it needs to have a serious link to an airport that is capable of competing with DUB. Pretending it can compete with DUB on its own will simply be a case of fiddling whilst Rome burns.

road_high

Dum_Dum wrote: »

No so much any more. Increasing congestion on the M7/N7 and M50, or the possibility of it, means the time allocated for an outbound journey should be at least 50% longer than the actual ideal conditions journey time (2hrs 20mins).


For a typical departure you should add check in time (90min) + journey time (140 min) + congestion penalty (70min) = 5hrs. You should leave at 8am for a 1pm departure. That's half a day just to get to the Airport. Of course return journeys are not subject to strict arrival times.



What about public transport? All coaches from Waterford to Dublin Airport run via Dublin City Centre, exasperating the problem as they are subject to congestion on the North Quays in Dublin as well as the M50, M7/N7.


My point is - access to Dublin Airport is becoming increasingly unreliable due to delays brought on by worsening traffic volumes in the Dublin region.


Nobody minds this occasional carry-on for the odd long-haul flight, but for short trips to Britain and near-Europe it is completely unacceptable. For this, all other regions can avail of their local airport for business commuting flights.

I often fly in out of Dublin for work, granted I live in Kilkenny but it takes no where near those times to get to/from the airport, even when traffic is heavy.
Several evenings I’ve left the runway in England at 7.30 hrs back in the door home at 10.00 pm - granted no hold ups at security and I always park at the terminal short term. Waterford is only another 25 or 30 mins drive time further. There’s no way it should be taking three hours unless a chronic bank holiday or crash or something unforeseen.
The travel times to Dublin in reality are not that bad at all really hence why it’s getting the lions share of business in the south east. I don’t think we are as isolated as some are painting here though the either or option of WAT to the UK via jet (the runway extension is needed) would be very appealing for me and something I’d support fully.

Posters saying the airport should move to south Kilkenny aren’t being realistic- it is where it is now and let’s proceed on that basis, you’re really only splitting hairs. And ignoring the sums of money already sunk into WAT site and infrastructure for very little if any gain

road_high

blackwhite wrote: »

Talk of multiple routes from WAT across Europe is pie-in-the-sky nonsense.
The airport can be viable with a key route to a major hub. Pretending it could become a hub for flights to lots of different destinations is fantasy land stuff, and does nothing but damage efforts to reopen the airport as a viable business.

There’s a limited local market where WAT makes more sense than DUB for short haul travel on a time basis. It’s not enough to sustain full operations, or even to sustain a handful of routes to minor locations (as demonstrated time and again by those who have tried). Aircraft size isn’t the problem - it’s consistently been a proved of PAX numbers and load factors.

Ireland simply isn’t big enough to sustain competing airports within 2 hours journey of each other. The M7 works won’t carry on forever, and you can’t plan strategic infrastructure on the basis of disruption from some 24-month roadworks.
If WAT is to be viable, it needs to have a serious link to an airport that is capable of competing with DUB. Pretending it can compete with DUB on its own will simply be a case of fiddling whilst Rome burns.

I do think myself that a key Ryanair type route or two could be viable as you would attract passengers from up the M9 corridor who consider the relative convenience and ease of access.
However I could see Cork in particular unhappy with extra competition for passengers

blackwhite

road_high wrote: »

I do think myself that a key Ryanair type route or two could be viable as you would attract passengers from up the M9 corridor who consider the relative convenience and ease of access.
However I could see Cork in particular unhappy with extra competition for passengers

Ryanair will only look as part of a route from an existing Ryanair hub.

The only Ryanair airport that would make sense for WAT is Gatwick. Waterford will only be sustainable with links into a major hub. As a stand-alone it will never justify a business case - with or without a runway extension.


A runway extension will help the ability to attract a carrier - but a new carrier will only be viable over the long term if they can link into a major long-haul hub

Deise Vu

road_high wrote: »

I often fly in out of Dublin for work, granted I live in Kilkenny but it takes no where near those times to get to/from the airport, even when traffic is heavy.
Several evenings I’ve left the runway in England at 7.30 hrs back in the door home at 10.00 pm - granted no hold ups at security and I always park at the terminal short term. Waterford is only another 25 or 30 mins drive time further. There’s no way it should be taking three hours unless a chronic bank holiday or crash or something unforeseen.
The travel times to Dublin in reality are not that bad at all really hence why it’s getting the lions share of business in the south east. I don’t think we are as isolated as some are painting here though the either or option of WAT to the UK via jet (the runway extension is needed) would be very appealing for me and something I’d support fully.

Posters saying the airport should move to south Kilkenny aren’t being realistic- it is where it is now and let’s proceed on that basis, you’re really only splitting hairs. And ignoring the sums of money already sunk into WAT site and infrastructure for very little if any gain

With all due respect your point on timing is utterly ridiculous. You are timing a run from lift-off in London to arriving in Kilkenny, having parked in the short-term car park in Dublin and picking a late evening after rush hour landing time when traffic is light on the road all the way down.

That is apples and oranges with someone leaving from Waterford to go to Dublin and get through security, having parked their car in the majority of cases in longer term parking. If I was using Dublin Airport the very latest I would leave it would be 4 hours before flight time and even then I would have my fingers crossed that the Naas Road roadworks wouldn't be gummed up or that there wouldn't be an accident on the M50.

Deiseen

Deise Vu wrote: »

With all due respect your point on timing is utterly ridiculous. You are timing a run from lift-off in London to arriving in Kilkenny, having parked in the short-term car park in Dublin and picking a late evening after rush hour landing time when traffic is light on the road all the way down.

That is apples and oranges with someone leaving from Waterford to go to Dublin and get through security, having parked their car in the majority of cases in longer term parking. If I was using Dublin Airport the very latest I would leave it would be 4 hours before flight time and even then I would have my fingers crossed that the Naas Road roadworks wouldn't be gummed up or that there wouldn't be an accident on the M50.

This!

azimuth17

Four hours before flight time, Waterford to Dublin airport is my regular timing when I use the Green car park. Anything less during working day and heart is pounding. Coming home late evening after rush hour can be much shorter.I usually get to KK junctions from Waterford in less than 30 minutes. M9/M7 widening will help but M50 traffic is becoming a nightmare.

dzilla

Muttley79 wrote: »

Bullish*t?Explain yourself

Muttley79 wrote: »

they fly to Alicante,Berlin,faro,Frankfurt,London Luton and London Stansted year round.

Incorrect

Muttley79 wrote: »

ok they have Killarney where it's a town with more hotels in it than anything.it has the picturesque gap of dunloe and ring of kerry which is their main selling point as a tourist spot.they have Ireland tourism on their side and also the Healy Rae's,who let's face it are laughable at but everyday they drive to dail eirenn they fight tooth and nail for their beloved Kerry

This is not the governments failing towards Waterford or some conspiracy to send investment to Kerry and not the South East. Kerry, like Galway has built up its own brand and image over the years. Where Waterford was happy to sit on the Sunny South East brand from the 80s and rely on the Glass to pull tourism in and not continue to reinvent itself or change until recent years. Now we are lightyears behind them. All the local businesses in kerry work together with the said councillers and TDS with a common goal to get investment and tourists to Kerry. They could give less of a frig about the south east.

Muttley79 wrote: »

Waterford the birth of Ryanair

Although you are not wrong the Ryanair that set up in Waterford and Ryanair in modern day are 2 very different things, modern management in Ryanair do not even look at that as been the start of Ryanair. If you watch the documentary on Tony Ryan with relation to his life this comes through evidently enough.

Muttley79 wrote: »

where if we had played our cards right could have been a major hub economically

How so?

Dum_Dum

dzilla wrote: »

...This is not the governments failing towards Waterford ...

What?


Governments have failed Waterford again and again.


The 1980's was a long time ago by the way.

invara

dzilla wrote: »

This is not the governments failing towards Waterford

It is a Government failing. John Halligan got a paragraph inserted in the programme for Government (2016) about supporting regional airports so they can survive on a standalone basis and money was allocated for this.

The region's councils were told that matching funding would be available for the runway extension if they could find a private partner and put a business case to the Government. The region's councils have done everything the Government requested and since April the submission has sat on the Government's desk. At the moment we are being strung along. How long is a private investor supposed to stick around waiting for a Government to deliver on its promise?

It is not a conspiracy against the South East- simply put we have no one pulling for us and other regions have.

dzilla

Dum_Dum wrote: »

What?


Governments have failed Waterford again and again.


The 1980's was a long time ago by the way.

invara wrote: »

It is a Government failing. John Halligan got a paragraph inserted in the programme for Government (2016) about supporting regional airports so they can survive on a standalone basis and money was allocated for this.

The region's councils were told that matching funding would be available for the runway extension if they could find a private partner and put a business case to the Government. The region's councils have done everything the Government requested and since April the submission has sat on the Government's desk. At the moment we are being strung along. How long is a private investor supposed to stick around waiting for a Government to deliver on its promise?

It is not a conspiracy against the South East- simply put we have no one pulling for us and other regions have.

If you read what I had quoted you will see I was referring to how Kerry branded itself successfully and we didnt. This is not a government failing of Waterford.

Dum_Dum

It's a long thread so I'll sum up the reasons from the last few days from some posters as to why the south-east isn't deserving of a decent airport and why Dublin Airport is best:


- the N7/M7 roadworks are only temporary and all will be well when finished
- we can all move to Kilkenny, travel in one-direction only and only at night
- we can all get the big green bus and change at the Red Cow
- It's all our fault anyway - we didn't rebrand ourselves in the 80's like Kerry did.


Meanwhile, it still takes half a day to get to the airport.

hardybuck

Dum_Dum wrote: »

It's a long thread so I'll sum up the reasons from the last few days from some posters as to why the south-east isn't deserving of a decent airport and why Dublin Airport is best:


- the N7/M7 roadworks are only temporary and all will be well when finished
- we can all move to Kilkenny, travel in one-direction only and only at night
- we can all get the big green bus and change at the Red Cow
- It's all our fault anyway - we didn't rebrand ourselves in the 80's like Kerry did.


Meanwhile, it still takes half a day to get to the airport.

Or because in light of the many competing projects which seek Government funding, this hasn't been seen as a priority yet, aside from the €750,000 it has received this year alone despite having no routes since 2016. It got €1m in 2016 actually.

My reading is that private investors are willing to stump up around 40% of the funding required to make this project work. This really indicates that the airport isn't viable as a commercial project.

To put this into context, the funding sought for the airport is roughly equivalent to the capital funding for the second cath lab for the hospital. Which delivers more value for money for the region?

Dum_Dum

hardybuck wrote: »

Or because in light of the many competing projects which seek Government funding, this hasn't been seen as a priority yet, aside from the €750,000 it has received this year alone despite having no routes since 2016. It got €1m in 2016 actually.

My reading is that private investors are willing to stump up around 40% of the funding required to make this project work. This really indicates that the airport isn't viable as a commercial project.

To put this into context, the funding sought for the airport is roughly equivalent to the capital funding for the second cath lab for the hospital. Which delivers more value for money for the region?

Explain to us why does the south-east have to choose between a cath lab OR an airport. No other region has to make this choice.

fricatus

Dum_Dum wrote: »

Explain to us why does the south-east have to choose between a cath lab OR an airport. No other region has to make this choice.

While at the same time doing without a university...

Harry Palmr

It's not as if both would be funded from the same dept pot.

hardybuck

Dum_Dum wrote: »

Explain to us why does the south-east have to choose between a cath lab OR an airport. No other region has to make this choice.

The south east doesn't, and that's not the question I asked you - nice try though.

However, there are a huge number projects like that up and down the country that are crying out for money, and they can't all get it.

This airport is basically looking for a level of funding that a bank or private investor wouldn't be prepared to give - because the project doesn't appear to be viable, or there isn't a clear return on investment.

If there is a clear return to be gained, I'm sure the business case will be sound and this will all be resolved in a timely fashion. If not, it won't be.

Bards

Hmm... Cork terminal anyone...big waste of money ever... No bank would have given cork airport the money for that over engineered under utilised piece of trophy Infrastructure

Teebor15

hardybuck wrote: »

The south east doesn't, and that's not the question I asked you - nice try though.

However, there are a huge number projects like that up and down the country that are crying out for money, and they can't all get it.

This airport is basically looking for a level of funding that a bank or private investor wouldn't be prepared to give - because the project doesn't appear to be viable, or there isn't a clear return on investment.

If there is a clear return to be gained, I'm sure the business case will be sound and this will all be resolved in a timely fashion. If not, it won't be.

The government just gave 6 million towards the new pedestrian bridge to be built in the city centre. Why was'nt it funded by a private investor? Is there a clear return to be gained? Will the bridge make money back for the state? I don't think its going to be tolled so how will they get a return on the investment?

notharrypotter

Bards wrote: »

Hmm... Cork terminal anyone...big waste of money ever... No bank would have given cork airport the money for that over engineered under utilised piece of trophy Infrastructure

paid for by the DAA's own funding not the taxpayers.


Agree that Cork Airport itself could not have afforded it using their own resources. But as part of a company whose parent organization is "willing" to carry the debt I may not like it but can accept it.

Bards

notharrypotter wrote: »

Bards wrote: »

Hmm... Cork terminal anyone...big waste of money ever... No bank would have given cork airport the money for that over engineered under utilised piece of trophy Infrastructure

paid for by the DAA's own funding not the taxpayers.


Agree that Cork Airport itself could not have afforded it using their own resources. But as part of a company whose parent organization is "willing" to carry the debt I may not like it but can accept it.

And who pays the DAA.... Yep the taxpayer... It is a semi state company

JohnC.

Bards wrote: »

And who pays the DAA.... Yep the taxpayer... It is a semi state company

It's also a commercial company making money in various ways around the world and paid money to the exchequer in 2016 (I don't know if last year's figures are available).