Why does Dublin only have one airport whereas similarly-sized cities have two?

737max

You mention Express routes for the most part. You might as well be pointing out the flashing lights on the airplanes which fly in the firmament above our heads.
It is very difficult to argue(much less respect them) with a person whose only tool to make you agree with them is the threat of removing your ability to speak.

737max

Brennus335 wrote: »

c) proper light rail connectivity to the city centre,


C I can see happening, although not in the near term future.

I remember the lovely plans for Metro West in the local library well over a decade ago. pipe dreams are pipe dreams and remain as such until ground is broken.

Irish Steve

737max wrote: »

Back at ya:
You making statements as if they were fact and diving away when challenged

Look at the train timetables and the bus eireann timetables and the shuttle service to BusAras and Heuston and Connolly and tell me where exactly can you get to on the Island after 20:00 more like after 9:30 when you get through immigration and catch a bus to the stations.

It is ridiculous. fingers in ears, Na, Na, Na, Na. Ireland has a great public transport system. Ireland has a great public transport system. Na, Na, Na, Na.

Try looking at the timetable for service 109A, which serves the airport, and overnight when other services are not running it serves central Dublin, and runs from Dublin via Ashbourne, Navan to Kells. 24 hour service.

L1011

737max wrote: »

You mention Express routes for the most part. You might as well be pointing out the flashing lights on the airplanes which fly in the firmament above our heads.
It is very difficult to argue(much less respect them) with a person whose only tool to make you agree with them is the threat of removing your ability to speak.

Most of the late night services are not express. They are equivalent to what you get in other countries

The rest of your post is rambling and incoherent.

737max

Irish Steve wrote: »

Try looking at the timetable for service 109A, which serves the airport, and overnight when other services are not running it serves central Dublin, and runs from Dublin via Ashbourne, Navan to Kells. 24 hour service.

Thats within the Pale.

737max

L1011 wrote: »

Most of the late night services are not express. They are equivalent to what you get in other countries

The rest of your post is rambling and incoherent.

I'm trying to find the non-express night time services for aircoach and citylink. can you see them?...the ones outside the pale.

Calina

I am trying to understand why a second airport would solve the lack of public transport to Dublin Airport or have we completely diverted from the point of this thread?

L1011

737max wrote: »

I'm trying to find the non-express night time services for aircoach and citylink. can you see them?...the ones outside the pale.

www.a-b.ie has all services for all operators on it. Not every operator has non-express services.

The number of overnight services from Dublin Airport is far, far higher than you have been claiming; and is equivalent to other countries.

Small towns and villages significant distances from airports have limited public transport to them, worldwide.

737max

So you acknowledge that the solutions you first suggested don't exist.

I've used A-B before it doesn't get me or most people living outside the pale home safe and sound. That isn't the problem of A-B. That is the lack of public transport in Ireland compounded by the Airport being so poorly connected to the main transport links in Dublin.

I knew Ireland had a poor infrastructure system before I left. I didn't just discover it when I left.
What I can't understand is why people are willing to accept it as the natural state of things.

Irish Steve

Calina wrote: »

I am trying to understand why a second airport would solve the lack of public transport to Dublin Airport or have we completely diverted from the point of this thread?

The best way I can put it is that the thread does appear to have gone into a holding pattern at the moment, but I would hope that we will get back on track shortly.

L1011

737max wrote: »

So you acknowledge that the solutions you first suggested don't exist.

No - I've told you where to find exactly what services there are. I am not your PA.

You were given an example of a 24 hour service to a midlands town (what you had previously said didn't exist) and you revised your criteria after the fact.

737max wrote: »

I knew Ireland had a poor infrastructure system before I left. I didn't just discover it when I left.
What I can't understand is why people are willing to accept it as the natural state of things.

Small towns substantial distance from airports are not going to get late night public transport services anywhere - it is not an Irish thing.

You have hauled this thread about a million miles off topic at this stage - if you want a thread to discuss your inaccurate ideas about transport links to the airport, post one - do not post on that topic on this thread again.

bk

The government has set aside €750 million over the next 4 years for the BusConnects project.

This is a massive investment and overhaul of bus services in the Dublin region.

It is expected that it will include 24/7 city bus routes in Dublin, likely on the core 16 routes into the city, which would of course include the airport. While not allowing connectivity to every corner of the country, it should greatly improve night time connectivity in Dublin and at the airport.

Dublin Airport is already probably the second best connected place in the country in day time (after Dublin City) and ironically probably the best connected place in the country at night time (a lot of the express coach services skip Dublin City at night and go straight to the airport e.g. EirEagle).

Of course non of this has anything to do with a second airport for Dublin. A second airport would actually make provisioning public transport much more difficult as you would now need to send buses and coaches to two airports rather then one and you would have to build two Metro lines rather then one!

There really is no point in building a second airport when Dublin Airprot can so easily be upgraded.

bk

737max wrote: »

I've used A-B before it doesn't get me or most people living outside the pale home safe and sound. That isn't the problem of A-B. That is the lack of public transport in Ireland compounded by the Airport being so poorly connected to the main transport links in Dublin.

Hold on their a second! Most people who live outside the pale live in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford urban areas. They are all very well served by night time coach services.

Yes not every little town in the country is served, but they certainly do not make up the majority of people living in Ireland or even outside the pale!

Brennus335

Irish Steve wrote: »

The best way I can put it is that the thread does appear to have gone into a holding pattern at the moment, but I would hope that we will get back on track shortly.

It's just waiting for the next Express Service to Ballygooutsidethepale...

Tenger

Lets all stick to the topic at hand. This is a thread about Dublin having a single airport. This is not a forum for certain members to vent their personal anger at the infrastructure of Dublin or the entire State.
I've given an infraction already, bans will follow for anyone who posts uncivil or abusive phrases.

737max

To clarify the discussion: Airports do not exist in isolation distinct from their Clientel. Dublin Airport doesn't address this issue very well.
Baldonnel for a start would although I admit that building a second Civl Aviation airport at that location is a sub-optimal solution considering how much money has been poured in to Dublin Airport already but...Baldonnel is close to a tram line, close to a busy rail line and nestled between two motorways leading to a population centre which could consume the services it provides.

bk

To actually clarify the discussion. It was asked why does Dublin not have a second airport like other similar sized cities.

The question was answered by explaining that other cities have two airports, usually because they ran out of space in the first. Fortunately a problem we don't have, we have an excellent airport, close to the city and well connected (for Ireland) and lots of land under it's ownership for further expansion.

Pretty much the ideal scenario.

You really don't want to build a second airport unless you don't have any other option.

Irish Steve

Baldonnel might be suitable for small aircraft size operations, but there are a number of major negatives. The first and fundamental issue is that the approach profile to Baldonnel impinges on the approach profile of Dublin, so there would be operational issues that would prevent the full utilisation of runway slots at both airports.
The approach profiles to Baldonnel pass over heavily populated areas, so there are significant implications for safety, whereas the profile of Dublin has been managed more aggressively to prevent residential development close to the critical areas of the runways. There would be massive issues with noise from Easterly departures out of Baldonnel.
Massive investment would be needed at Baldonnel to put in the necessary infrastucture to facilitate commercial operations, the same investment at Dublin would resolve the transport issues.

The reality is that with the correct investment and commitment from all stake holders, Dublin has the space to expand to handle the traffic volumes that are likely to happen over the next decade at least, and possibly longer. It needs some serious political will to address some of the issues that are evident, but from the aviation aspect, there is no good reason to even think of an additional airport for the Dublin area of the country for some considerable time to come.

Now, please, let's move on. Further discussion of public transport issues relating to Dublin Airport needs to be taken to the Commuting and Transport forum.

Negative_G

Del2005 wrote: »

Oh yeah I forgot a couple of biz jets for the government to fly around on.

Im not here to justify anything regarding the Air Corps. I'm simply stating a simple fact. If you want to get into the politics of the Air Corps, start a different thread or contact your local TD.

While you're here anyway, how many 'biz jets' do the Air Corps have exactly? I'm interested to know.

Fattes

Biggest barrier to using Casement is the N7. It is already operating beyond capacity and throwing an operational civilian airport beside it would. E a complete disaster

Calina

737max wrote: »

To clarify the discussion: Airports do not exist in isolation distinct from their Clientel. Dublin Airport doesn't address this issue very well.
Baldonnel for a start would although I admit that building a second Civl Aviation airport at that location is a sub-optimal solution considering how much money has been poured in to Dublin Airport already but...Baldonnel is close to a tram line, close to a busy rail line and nestled between two motorways leading to a population centre which could consume the services it provides.

Suggesting Baldonnel strikes me as one of those typical moves in Ireland of suggesting an apparently simple solution to a complex problem.

Personally I don't agree with it.

I would tend to agree that Dublin Airport could better serve the people of Ireland and the lack of a rail based connection has been a nuisance for years. I hope, at this point, Metro North will actually lead to some rectification of some of the transport problems related to Dublin Airport.

That being said, I don't think building a second airport is an appropriate response to the problems. At the outset of this thread, you suggested that the mere size of Dublin alone was an argument in favour of building a second airport. It isn't. Many cities the size of Dublin have only 1 airport, and many airports in the world handle significantly more flights and passengers than Dublin does. There are certain capacity issues with Dublin but there's a wider discussion to be had in terms of identifying the best solution. From my memory of spending a lot of my life in Dublin Airport, it suffers from some capacity issues both in terms of runway access and especially terminal access. T2 was a bit disappointing on that front. This is an issue relating to how we handle things in Ireland, ie, we do as little as we get away with. I call it the Yerrah It'll Do project management paradigm.

So, the first question really is, what are the issues with Dublin and what is the best solution?

I'm not an expert, but it seems to me the key issues are

a) public transport access
b) runway capacity at certain times of the day - first wave of flights springs to mind
c) terminal building capacity
d) the scope to turn it into a transit airport as a bridge between the US and EU.
e) motorway access capacity

Arguably, Dublin Airport is no worse off than a lot of Dublin on the public transport side of things. I've always felt that there is a lot to be said for building a public transport interchange there that brings buses, trains and local transport together. Satolas in Lyon has done similar - has its own TGV stop, and of course, Brussels Zaventem is plugged into the national rail network as is the airport in Frankfurt. I'd like to see something like this happen but it involves strategic spatial planning on a scale far beyond Dublin Airport on its own.

There are no economies of scale in building several airports and as noted by at least one previous poster, it can cause issues in terms of public transport support for the airport. The fact that Luas goes somewhere near Baldonnel on its own doesn't really support access for the rest of the country and looking at a map, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of space out around Baldonnel for expansion.


2) Dublin Airport is working on the additional of a second runway.

3) and 4) The current terminal set up in Dublin airport is very disappointing but it is also going to be subject to sunk costs. The original terminal building = part of A - is a listed building AFAIK now, but outside that, it seems to me that in the medium term, Dublin could benefit from building new terminal buildings and getting rid of the current T1 and T2. And get advice from the south east Asian airport builders. I've no idea why our airports can't be as pleasant an experience as the Hongkong et al are. Even in Europe, for a city on a similar scale to Dublin but which handles a lot of long haul too, Helsinki is a far more pleasant airport to be stuck in for a few hours.

5) Ideally if long haul rail came into the airport in a more efficient manner, you might not need so much motorway capacity but I will cheerfully admit the M50 is problematic for airport access.

But for Baldonnel, so is the M7/n7 and the M50 going the other direction.

I don't have any objection to the AirCorps having their own airfield. I think there's a lot to be said for keeping both types of traffic separate.

Third_Echelon

737max wrote: »

I don't want to talk about Baldonnel but sharing an airport isn't so unusual. I've flown in to airports in India and seen the Harriers lined up not far from the runway which makes a change from bizjets and civil aviation jets.

Tell me how many minutes would it take to launch Irelands entire Air Force from Baldonnel. Is it less than the time spent taxi-ing at Dublin Airport in the morning.

It is good to share.

Negative_G wrote: »

Agreed it isnt unusual.

The point Im making is that its one thing to share an airport when an air arm has more than one base. You will struggle to find any examples comparable to the size of Ireland. The only one I can think off is Malta which is tiny in comparison.

You can't hope to conduct almost 100% of training and operations while accommodating commercial traffic.

I've seen this in the US as well. Most notably St.Louis.

I don't think Baldonnel is a solution. More investment in DUB is required with T3 and additional runway etc. Transfer passengers are becoming big for Aer Lingus from the US for example. Quite a few people that I've talked to on EI flights from US are going on to mainland europe...