Cork Airport - *Read Mod Note in First Post Before Posting*

hans aus dtschl

Apologies if this has already been asked, but has the ORK-AMS frequency been reduced?
It was 14 times a week (morning and evening, 7 days) but midweek evenings seem to have disappeared. It's mornings only on Tue, Wed, Thu now.

Very inconvenient as I use the evenings more, in order to be in time for morning meetings.

hans aus dtschl

roundymac wrote: »

Plenty, I have to do it every year with the wife, that N20 would wreck your head, especially at 4.AM. When it becomes the M20 it might'nt be too bad, problem is I might be around then. I want it now.

Exactly, I've no problem using Shannon (I prefer it to Dublin) but the current low quality road adds a lot of uncertainty to your travel time.

Squedward

Same, I went to Canada via Shannon last year and again this year but honestly as some one who travels between Galway and cork, I'd much rather fly via cork. I would love to know the economics that made air Canada chose Shannon over cork as pre clearance doesn't have an impact and they are using a 737.

revelman

Finally got round to taking a trip on the Cork to Providence route this weekend. Departed on Thursday and returned on Monday night getting in early this morning. It was an absolutely fantastic long weekend. This was my 9th time to the US but first with Norwegian and I was extremely impressed. Miles ahead of United in terms of service and I would even put the overall experience ahead of AA, BA, KLM and Aer Lingus - the other airlines I’ve flown with. It helped that the flight was only half full on the way out and back so my other half and I had three seats to ourselves. The staff were absolutely superb and immigration was a breeze in TF Green. Best of all we had a strong tail wind coming back so the trip from Providence to Cork took 4 hours and 50 minutes!

It is very worrying though that on a bank holiday weekend, I counted about 90 passengers outbound and 80 inbound. Less than half full each way. This does not bode well for the future. It struck both of us that Cork people are very good at campaigning to introduce new routes. But we also need to campaign to maintain routes - encouraging friends and family to take the trip. Our return flight cost us 217 euro each, wonderful hotel in Boston for 3 nights booked at ridiculously cheap rate on Hot Wire and one night stay in Providence, which turned out to be an interesting little place.

revelman

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

Apologies if this has already been asked, but has the ORK-AMS frequency been reduced?
It was 14 times a week (morning and evening, 7 days) but midweek evenings seem to have disappeared. It's mornings only on Tue, Wed, Thu now.

Very inconvenient as I use the evenings more, in order to be in time for morning meetings.

Yes. They have been reduced. It is a pain for me too as I rely on those evening flights. I think this reduction is likely related to Air France’s arrival at Cork.

Shn99

revelman wrote: »

Finally got round to taking a trip on the Cork to Providence route this weekend. Departed on Thursday and returned on Monday night getting in early this morning. It was an absolutely fantastic long weekend. This was my 9th time to the US but first with Norwegian and I was extremely impressed. Miles ahead of United in terms of service and I would even put the overall experience ahead of AA, BA, KLM and Aer Lingus - the other airlines I’ve flown with. It helped that the flight was only half full on the way out and back so my other half and I had three seats to ourselves. The staff were absolutely superb and immigration was a breeze in TF Green. Best of all we had a strong tail wind coming back so the trip from Providence to Cork took 4 hours and 50 minutes!

It is very worrying though that on a bank holiday weekend, I counted about 90 passengers outbound and 80 inbound. Less than half full each way. This does not bode well for the future. It struck both of us that Cork people are very good at campaigning to introduce new routes. But we also need to campaign to maintain routes - encouraging friends and family to take the trip. Our return flight cost us 217 euro each, wonderful hotel in Boston for 3 nights booked at ridiculously cheap rate on Hot Wire and one night stay in Providence, which turned out to be an interesting little place.

Things better improve in June/July if the service is to be maintained. Use it or loose it. Would be a shame to see the service go completely after all the campaigning that has went on

.red.

Shn99 wrote: »

Things better improve in June/July if the service is to be maintained. Use it or loose it. Would be a shame to see the service go completely after all the campaigning that has went on

I've said it here before, the flight has less than 100 people a lot more times than it has more than 100. The airport and press would love to have people believe it's full over and back every time but it's not. I honestly can't see it coming back. Why would they?

marno21

The loads are reflective of the amount of people going from Cork to Providence on a LCC at this time of the year. The inly airport from which Providence has been a year round success is Dublin

If EI operated a Cork-Boston route it would have similar load numbers if it was a strictly point to point route. The only plus would be higher yielding business class fares given the presence of EMC etc in Cork

Shn99

.red. wrote: »

I've said it here before, the flight has less than 100 people a lot more times than it has more than 100. The airport and press would love to have people believe it's full over and back every time but it's not. I honestly can't see it coming back. Why would they?

It had a 77% LF last July (thats taking into effect the 150 outbound cap).

revelman

marno21 wrote: »

The loads are reflective of the amount of people going from Cork to Providence on a LCC at this time of the year. The inly airport from which Providence has been a year round success is Dublin

If EI operated a Cork-Boston route it would have similar load numbers if it was a strictly point to point route. The only plus would be higher yielding business class fares given the presence of EMC etc in Cork

Yes, but any other LCC would have been packed to the rafters on a bank holiday weekend. Granted people don’t generally hop across the Atlantic for long weekends but it worked out really well for us and turned out to be as cheap as city breaks in Europe.

marno21

revelman wrote: »

Yes, but any other LCC would have been packed to the rafters on a bank holiday weekend. Granted people don’t generally hop across the Atlantic for long weekends but it worked out really well for us and turned out to be as cheap as city breaks in Europe.

I agree with that. The entire 737 transatlantic operation is very poor aircraft utilisation by Norwegian for brand new 737s. Ryanair would be transporting 6-7x the daily passengers if they had them.

Shn99

Its a pity the ryanair feeder deal with Norwegian fell through

.red.

Shn99 wrote: »

It had a 77% LF last July (thats taking into effect the 150 outbound cap).

That's one month out of 11/12.

JCX BXC

roundymac wrote: »

Plenty, I have to do it every year with the wife, that N20 would wreck your head, especially at 4.AM. When it becomes the M20 it might'nt be too bad, problem is I might be around then. I want it now.

Problem here is roundymac, the same applies for the people who travel to Rome, Orlando, Berlin, Perth or Katmandu. They have to travel to other airports. Can I ask, was the Providence route of any use for you, when your wife travels to NY?

Flights are put on purely for demand, and I still don't get the extreme fascination with US flights. It's likely a route to Rome would do better, and operate at higher frequency and on a more sustainable basis. If only the effort was put into this route instead.

By all means chase every route you can, but there's a line really. The political lobbying done for this route, for an airline that could have operated said route without the Irish AOC, with grave financial issues, with no interline agreements and to an airport which makes self connecting effectively impossible is where I dervive my issue. It seems any body in Ireland (including Shannon airports, Department of Transport etc) (except Cork, who went the extra mile) that lobbied for this service did it for mainly for PR reasons.

Now if someone like United or Jet Blue showed concrete interest, then the effort was understandable. However in this case, one would understand why I am of the strong opinion that the route was for more aesthetic reasons than serving the region.

JCX BXC

.red. wrote: »

That's one month out of 11/12.

It proves though that the route could be made viable with work in the summer season.

SleetAndSnow

JCX BXC wrote: »

Problem here is roundymac, the same applies for the people who travel to Rome, Orlando, Berlin, Perth or Katmandu. They have to travel to other airports. Can I ask, was the Providence route of any use for you, when your wife travels to NY?

Flights are put on purely for demand, and I still don't get the extreme fascination with US flights. It's likely a route to Rome would do better, and operate at higher frequency and on a more sustainable basis. If only the effort was put into this route instead.

By all means chase every route you can, but there's a line really. The political lobbying done for this route, for an airline that could have operated said route without the Irish AOC, with grave financial issues, with no interline agreements and to an airport which makes self connecting effectively impossible is where I dervive my issue. It seems any body in Ireland (including Shannon airports, Department of Transport etc) (except Cork, who went the extra mile) that lobbied for this service did it for mainly for PR reasons.

Now if someone like United or Jet Blue showed concrete interest, then the effort was understandable. However in this case, one would understand why I am of the strong opinion that the route was for more aesthetic reasons than serving the region.

Whats interesting though is it isn't just the Irish airports pushing for this route to take off, but TF Green airport is aswell. Just from reading their twitter, the first tweet mentions all the Irish airports, third tweet mentions specifically Cork, then another for Shannon and another for Cork. They seem to want to push the route as much as the Irish (specifically Cork) are pushing it, which is a good thing because at least they are trying and just aren't leaving it in the dust.

JCX BXC

SleetAndSnow wrote: »

Whats interesting though is it isn't just the Irish airports pushing for this route to take off, but TF Green airport is aswell. Just from reading their twitter, the first tweet mentions all the Irish airports, third tweet mentions specifically Cork, then another for Shannon and another for Cork. They seem to want to push the route as much as the Irish (specifically Cork) are pushing it, which is a good thing because at least they are trying and just aren't leaving it in the dust.

One must note though that TF green is a small airport, and although larger than Cork they gained alot more than Cork did. They gained year round flights to Cork, Shannon, Dublin, Belfast and Edinburgh, with good onward connections from DUB although self connecting.

And I'd also mention that social media posts are very different to political lobbying. Every airport should engage in good social media advertising.

hans aus dtschl

revelman wrote: »

Yes. They have been reduced. It is a pain for me too as I rely on those evening flights. I think this reduction is likely related to Air France’s arrival at Cork.

I don't understand: are you suggesting that the route with Air France in some way compensates for the AMS route?

The AMS route had relatively high usage any time I was on it, I don't understand why it was reduced, the only thing that makes sense to me is that either IAG gave the Amsterdam Aer Lingus slot to BA/Iberia/etc or Aer Lingus took the slot from Cork and gave it to somewhere else (Dublin?).

It's really irritating to see this gradual running-down of route frequency by Aer Lingus, they did it with Munich too.
They're certainly no friend to Cork, so I'm going to be no friend to them: I'll choose competitors where possible.

SleetAndSnow

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

I don't understand: are you suggesting that the route with Air France in some way compensates for the AMS route?

The AMS route had relatively high usage any time I was on it, I don't understand why it was reduced, the only thing that makes sense to me is that either IAG gave the Amsterdam Aer Lingus slot to BA/Iberia/etc or Aer Lingus took the slot from Cork and gave it to somewhere else (Dublin?).

It's really irritating to see this gradual running-down of route frequency by Aer Lingus, they did it with Munich too.
They're certainly no friend to Cork, so I'm going to be no friend to them: I'll choose competitors where possible.

The air France route brings you to CDG airport which is starting to become a connector airport , which is why it's possible that aer lingus lowered frequency since AMS was mainly a connector airport too.

hans aus dtschl

SleetAndSnow wrote: »

The air France route brings you to CDG airport which is starting to become a connector airport , which is why it's possible that aer lingus lowered frequency since AMS was mainly a connector airport too.

I still don't think it makes a lot of sense: Air France begin their route at CDG, and Aer Lingus reduce their (long-standing) competition, in the hope of making Air France more profitable?
Is it because Aer Lingus codeshared with KLM at AMS that this makes sense?

JCX BXC

Since the IAG takeover of Aer Lingus and the announcement of the CDG route with Air France, the Air France/KLM group are beginning to emphasize connections via CDG. The codeshare on AMS will probably only last so long. I understand numbers are also falling on the AMS route (although I still can't access the numbers). This is also likely due to massively increased compeition in Dublin, with both Ryanair and KLM launching the route, offering choices that didn't exist before during and entirely Aer Lingus dominated market.

snotboogie

JCX BXC wrote: »

Since the IAG takeover of Aer Lingus and the announcement of the CDG route with Air France, the Air France/KLM group are beginning to emphasize connections via CDG. The codeshare on AMS will probably only last so long. I understand numbers are also falling on the AMS route (although I still can't access the numbers). This is also likely due to massively increased compeition in Dublin, with both Ryanair and KLM launching the route, offering choices that didn't exist before during and entirely Aer Lingus dominated market.

The numbers are down because of the decreased frequency. The decreased frequency is due to IAG trying to route more through Heathrow, they upped the Cork Heathrow capacity after reducing at Schiphol. I would hope that the long term plan is to put a KLM cityhopper service to Schiphol, as like you said I can't see the codeshare lasting longterm

JCX BXC

snotboogie wrote: »

The numbers are down because of the decreased frequency. The decreased frequency is due to IAG trying to route more through Heathrow, they upped the Cork Heathrow capacity after reducing at Schiphol. I would hope that the long term plan is to put a KLM cityhopper service to Schiphol, as like you said I can't see the codeshare lasting longterm

Were they not down before decreased frequency?

A KLM City Hopper service would be great, but I can't see it co-existing with an Aer Lingus service. A KLM cityhopper service would cater for connections and some business traffic, but would however wipe out lesuire travel on the route. An Aer Lingus service would cater for business and lesuire, but not connections (assuming codeshare ends). That's the main problem here in my opinion.

vg88

snotboogie wrote: »

The numbers are down because of the decreased frequency. The decreased frequency is due to IAG trying to route more through Heathrow, they upped the Cork Heathrow capacity after reducing at Schiphol. I would hope that the long term plan is to put a KLM cityhopper service to Schiphol, as like you said I can't see the codeshare lasting longterm

I call BS on that, IAG doesn't force airlines to route through Heathrow as it generally is at max.

It's due to lack of demand (especially mid week) and KLM no longer selling one way tickets to Cork.

JCX BXC

vg88 wrote: »

KLM no longer selling one way tickets to Cork.

Did they do this previously? I didn't realise!

snotboogie

vg88 wrote: »

snotboogie wrote: »

The numbers are down because of the decreased frequency. The decreased frequency is due to IAG trying to route more through Heathrow, they upped the Cork Heathrow capacity after reducing at Schiphol. I would hope that the long term plan is to put a KLM cityhopper service to Schiphol, as like you said I can't see the codeshare lasting longterm

I call BS on that, IAG doesn't force airlines to route through Heathrow as it generally is at max.

It's due to lack of demand (especially mid week) and KLM no longer selling one way tickets to Cork.

IAG are Aerlingus, "force" makes no sense. Airlines don't route flights to feed their competitors hubs

EdgeCase

I suspected that would happen after the IAG takeover.

They'll play the pretending that Aer Lingus is an entirely separate operation for so long - certainly for long enough to ensure that it isn't an issue for PR and political / regulatory splash back, and then it'll just end up making more business sense to them to route more and more traffic via London and cutting routes.

They're a commercial company with a requirement to maximise profits for shareholders, not to carry flags. I don't see how anyone thought these mergers won't eventually end up with a handful of big European airlines.

Brexit may scupper some of it, but I still can't see that merger working out all that well for Are Lingus in the medium term.

So, if anything the AF route into CDG is quite important. An actual KLM route to Amsterdam would be helpful too.

vg88

snotboogie wrote: »

IAG are Aerlingus, "force" makes no sense. Airlines don't route flights to feed their competitors hubs

What IAG did is make Aer Lingus look at better return of investment rather than spreading routes everywhere. Aer Lingus are focusing on more profitable routes now and are being rewarded by extra planes coming from IAG.

Therefore less profitable routes, such as evening mid week and with low demand would always be reduced imo.

snotboogie

JCX BXC wrote: »

snotboogie wrote: »

The numbers are down because of the decreased frequency. The decreased frequency is due to IAG trying to route more through Heathrow, they upped the Cork Heathrow capacity after reducing at Schiphol. I would hope that the long term plan is to put a KLM cityhopper service to Schiphol, as like you said I can't see the codeshare lasting longterm

Were they not down before decreased frequency?

A KLM City Hopper service would be great, but I can't see it co-existing with an Aer Lingus service. A KLM cityhopper service would cater for connections and some business traffic, but would however wipe out lesuire travel on the route. An Aer Lingus service would cater for business and lesuire, but not connections (assuming codeshare ends). That's the main problem here in my opinion.

Numbers were growing year on year until the cut in 2017. Without seeing the transit vs Amsterdam numbers it's pretty much impossible to say what would work or not.

snotboogie

vg88 wrote: »

snotboogie wrote: »

IAG are Aerlingus, "force" makes no sense. Airlines don't route flights to feed their competitors hubs

What IAG did is make Aer Lingus look at better return of investment rather than spreading routes everywhere. Aer Lingus are focusing on more profitable routes now and are being rewarded by extra planes coming from IAG.

Therefore less profitable routes, such as evening mid week and with low demand would always be reduced imo.

What are you basing this on? ORK-AMS was one of the busiest routes in Ireland