Waterford Airport

Stovepipe

If you decided to drive from the centre of Waterford to O'Connell Street, Dublin, that's 2h 30 right away. If you stay on motorways, you shave a lot off but certain choke points make the journey very tedious.

marno21

Of the 5 cities for development in the National Development Plan, Waterford is by far the worst connected in terms of airports. Cork and Dublin are both 100km+ away. Galway has Shannon and Knock, and the other 3 cities have obvious connections.

If the NDP is focused on these cities and international connectivity is a key attribute of these cities then it makes sense to spend the relatively small sum on the runway extension.

JCX BXC

In terms of attracting cargo flights, from who and where? Cork lost its only cargo flight to Shannon about a year or so ago, and that was only on an ATR42! There's no market for cargo, (there's no market for several things!), any suggestion that this runway will bring all these cargo flights that will be great for the local area is airy fairy, this won't happen.

lufties

JCX BXC wrote: »

In terms of attracting cargo flights, from who and where? Cork lost its only cargo flight to Shannon about a year or so ago, and that was only on an ATR42! There's no market for cargo, (there's no market for several things!), any suggestion that this runway will bring all these cargo flights that will be great for the local area is airy fairy, this won't happen.

No market for cargo, however there is a pax market. NOC and KIR do well, why can't WAT?

Masala

lufties wrote: »

No market for cargo, however there is a pax market. NOC and KIR do well, why can't WAT?

..... oh no... it's Groundhog Day re-run!! Am off to the pub while the sun is shining..

ExoPolitic

SweetCaliber wrote: »

Drove to the airport yesterday and it took me 2 hours 10 minutes including the roadworks at Naas and general M50/M1 traffic.

Definitely does not take half a day unless you take the old road through all the towns and not the motorway.

Try leaving your home in Waterford then to catch a flight that leaves in two hours and ten minutes time from Dublin airport... Good luck with that one!

Realistically the latest I leave is 4 hours, and usually leave 5 hours before.

L1011

The reality is that with currently available airframes and global pilot shortages, no routes are viable. Extending the runway may help a little in allowing 737s or big RJs but it's far from guaranteed

Not enough people are willing to pay the premium over DUB

Stovepipe

JCX BXC wrote: »

In terms of attracting cargo flights, from who and where? Cork lost its only cargo flight to Shannon about a year or so ago, and that was only on an ATR42! There's no market for cargo, (there's no market for several things!), any suggestion that this runway will bring all these cargo flights that will be great for the local area is airy fairy, this won't happen.

It seems to me that the lifting of cargo, big or small, State or private, out of the Republic has been forcibly centralised to Dublin. I recall seeing an operator shipping fresh (live) seafood out of Carrickfin, having to unload them in Dublin and reload them onto an EI flight to go to Europe. Now, to me, that was so inefficient, it slashed the potential profit from that seafood by greatly increasing the delivery time and in short order, it stopped. I'll bet they transhipped them to Derry via road and got them away and saved costs and made a profit. I also suspect that manufacturers and retailers in regional centres like Waterford and Sligo, who ship out of the State, are so conditioned to using groupage road freight, that the concept of using fast, daily, high speed aerial freight is unknown to them.I'll bet shipping by air is not sufficiently marketed to manufacturers and suppliers outside Dublin.

L1011

Stovepipe wrote: »

It seems to me that the lifting of cargo, big or small, State or private, out of the Republic has been forcibly centralised to Dublin. I recall seeing an operator shipping fresh (live) seafood out of Carrickfin, having to unload them in Dublin and reload them onto an EI flight to go to Europe. Now, to me, that was so inefficient, it slashed the potential profit from that seafood by greatly increasing the delivery time and in short order, it stopped. I'll bet they transhipped them to Derry via road and got them away and saved costs and made a profit. I also suspect that manufacturers and retailers in regional centres like Waterford and Sligo, who ship out of the State, are so conditioned to using groupage road freight, that the concept of using fast, daily, high speed aerial freight is unknown to them.I'll bet shipping by air is not sufficiently marketed to manufacturers and suppliers outside Dublin.

Who carries cargo out of LDY?

faoiarvok

Stovepipe wrote: »

It seems to me that the lifting of cargo, big or small, State or private, out of the Republic has been forcibly centralised to Dublin.

Shannon does a fair amount of cargo.

lufties

Masala wrote: »

..... oh no... it's Groundhog Day re-run!! Am off to the pub while the sun is shining..

Hope you choked on your bacon fries.

Yurt2

Is there any case to be made for Ireland to have one mega-airport like Incheon in Korea or Schiphol in the Netherlands? Close down the rest of them and plonk it in the midlands.

road_high

There are too many airports in Munster in particular (4 airports serving a million or so). Shannon, cork and Kerry are all too near eachother dipping into the same catchments. Classic case of parish pump politics backfiring on everyone with the result no one is getting a proper service. I’d leave Kerry as it’s pretty isolated and have built an airport between cork and limerick to serve both

roundymac

road_high wrote: »

There are too many airports in Munster in particular (4 airports serving a million or so). Shannon, cork and Kerry are all too near eachother dipping into the same catchments. Classic case of parish pump politics backfiring on everyone with the result no one is getting a proper service. I’d leave Kerry as it’s pretty isolated and have built an airport between cork and limerick to serve both

Thank god your not in charge.

road_high

roundymac wrote: »

Thank god your not in charge.

Yea god forbid we might have a viable airport in the right
Location with more services- it’s better have one at every parish pump with flights to nowhere! Sure why not put one in every county? Tipp is missing out
There isn’t the business to support cork and snn as major international hubs as their constant struggles for passengers evidence

Dum_Dum

road_high wrote: »

Yea god forbid we might have a viable airport in the right
Location with more services- it’s better have one at every parish pump with flights to nowhere! Sure why not put one in every county? Tipp is missing out
There isn’t the business to support cork and snn as major international hubs as their constant struggles for passengers evidence

The only region not served is the South East. It's not a parish - it's a region.



Who says the airports you mention need to be major international hubs? That place will always be Dublin. Nobody minds the odd trek to Dublin for the occasional flight to North America or Asia. But for all other flights to Britain and the near-continent what's wrong with a regional airport?

Dum_Dum

Yurt! wrote: »

Is there any case to be made for Ireland to have one mega-airport like Incheon in Korea or Schiphol in the Netherlands? Close down the rest of them and plonk it in the midlands.

For what problem does this mega-hub solution solve? The only region unserved is the South East: cost of extending the runway approx €12 million. A mega-hub in the midlands would many billions. €12 million looks like a bargain.

JCX BXC

Dum_Dum wrote: »

For what problem does this mega-hub solution solve? The only region unserved is the South East: cost of extending the runway approx €12 million. A mega-hub in the midlands would many billions. €12 million looks like a bargain.

€12 million is only a bargain if it results in a functioning airport. If not, it's an expensive piece of tarmac.

road_high

Dum_Dum wrote: »

The only region not served is the South East. It's not a parish - it's a region.



Who says the airports you mention need to be major international hubs? That place will always be Dublin. Nobody minds the odd trek to Dublin for the occasional flight to North America or Asia. But for all other flights to Britain and the near-continent what's wrong with a regional airport?

It’s pointless using the south east region as an argument- most if it is part of the GDA like it or not. If WAT is to be viable that’s where the majority of it’s customers will have to come from- the rest of Munster is saturated with airports as it is

Dum_Dum

road_high wrote: »

It’s pointless using the south east region as an argument- most if it is part of the GDA like it or not. If WAT is to be viable that’s where the majority of it’s customers will have to come from- the rest of Munster is saturated with airports as it is

So what's your solution? The solution should cost less than 12 million.


Maybe you don't think there's a problem that needs solving? It's OK for a region (or Waterford in particular; to play Devil's advocate) to not have reasonable access to air services? Would you expect such a place to be as successful and to have similar opportunities vis-a-vis as places that do?

Stovepipe

they built two runways in Inishbofin and Clifden but won't open them, even for general aviation!

Dum_Dum

Stovepipe wrote: »

they built two runways in Inishbofin and Clifden but won't open them, even for general aviation!

I'm not sure what the implication is here - are you suggesting that an extended runway will be the centrepiece of a white elephant?

Stovepipe

Well, an extended runway for EIWF would increase it's utility for bigger jets; it's already usable for Avro Rjs and business jets. For the sake of a few hundred metres of concrete, it's worth it. Unfortunately for the two runways I mentioned, they have been mishandled politically so are useless, right now.

lufties

Dum_Dum wrote: »

The only region not served is the South East. It's not a parish - it's a region.



Who says the airports you mention need to be major international hubs? That place will always be Dublin. Nobody minds the odd trek to Dublin for the occasional flight to North America or Asia. But for all other flights to Britain and the near-continent what's wrong with a regional airport?

Even when I lived in Limerick I had to get a bus to Dublin to catch flights to LGW due to rubbish flight times from SNN. Incredibly frustrating.

ned14

road_high wrote: »

There are too many airports in Munster in particular (4 airports serving a million or so). Shannon, cork and Kerry are all too near eachother dipping into the same catchments. Classic case of parish pump politics backfiring on everyone with the result no one is getting a proper service. I’d leave Kerry as it’s pretty isolated and have built an airport between cork and limerick to serve both

Current situation: We have 4 competing airports.
Solution: Build an airport between Cork and Shannon to serve both.
New Situation: We have 5 competing airports.

(Inspired by xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/ )

road_high

ned14 wrote: »

Current situation: We have 4 competing airports.
Solution: Build an airport between Cork and Shannon to serve both.
New Situation: We have 5 competing airports.

(Inspired by xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/ )

I didn’t offer a solution as not really sure what the solution is to all these failed airports- neither do the people running them it seems and as the passenger numbers indicate. It’s too late now but Cork and SNN should have been built in the one place...but every county had to have one of course so they were built allover the shop

ned14

road_high wrote: »

ned14 wrote: »

Current situation: We have 4 competing airports.
Solution: Build an airport between Cork and Shannon to serve both.
New Situation: We have 5 competing airports.

(Inspired by xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/ )

I didn’t offer a solution as not really sure what the solution is to all these failed airports- neither do the people running them it seems and as the passenger numbers indicate. It’s too late now but Cork and SNN should have been built in the one place...but every county had to have one of course so they were built allover the shop

It's just classic Ireland. Even going back to why ORK was built where it is. Parish politics have even dictated our airports.

Teebor15

road_high wrote: »

I didn’t offer a solution as not really sure what the solution is to all these failed airports- neither do the people running them it seems and as the passenger numbers indicate. It’s too late now but Cork and SNN should have been built in the one place...but every county had to have one of course so they were built allover the shop

Interested to hear which airports you deem to be failures, and what criteria your using to come to that conclusion?

blackwhite

Stovepipe wrote: »

If you decided to drive from the centre of Waterford to O'Connell Street, Dublin, that's 2h 30 right away. If you stay on motorways, you shave a lot off but certain choke points make the journey very tedious.

I left in-laws house in Ardkeen at 6.45 this morning, and was at my desk in Dublin 1 at 9.05 (including a coffee stop en route).

The M7 works were heavy this morning as well

Dum_Dum

blackwhite wrote: »

I left in-laws house in Ardkeen at 6.45 this morning, and was at my desk in Dublin 1 at 9.05 (including a coffee stop en route).

The M7 works were heavy this morning as well

What time will you leave Dublin for Waterford this evening?