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

The main runway can be fairly easily extended by 247 metres at the north without any immediate planning, flight path or topological issues as identified in the Cork County Council Airport Special Local Area Plan in 2010: http://corkcocoplans.ie/airport-slap-2010/

247 metres would bring 16/34 to roughly the same length as 10R/28L in Dublin and would make it significantly longer than Cardiffs runway which accommodates 787's to Qatar. That would open up as far West as Chicago and Atlanta and as Far East as Dubai (Emirates have long flirted with Cork as in this article: https://www.independent.ie/business/in-the-workplace/cork-looks-to-medium-long-haul-as-its-business-offering-grows/37017952.html despite the runway making flights impossible)

The 737 needs to operate at vastly reduced loads in the winter out of Cork

You have to think about catchment areas as well.

The people who use Cork airport are not all from Cork, likewise Shannon.

People from Limerick could use Cork for a trip to Europe and people from Cork could use Shannon for a trip to Newark.

At the end of the day, it doesnt matter so long as one have frequency, availability and the price is OK.

The M20 will change the way we think about Cork Vs Shannon the same way as when the motorways to Dublin changed the way we view using that Airport.

Why would it matter?

When the M20 is done, Shannon will be 90 minutes away from Cork City. Cork Airport is about 10 minutes away from Cork City. Does that 80 minutes really matter all that much?

We all know that Cork Airport itself is not well suited for long-haul traffic due to the geography of the airport and its short runway. How much would it cost to rectify this? Will airlines then jump at the chance to fill the void knowing that Shannon is up the road? No use spending hundreds of millions on an airport runway extension if no airline is willing to use it.

We need to be less parochial about this. It's not the zero-sum game you make it out to be.

If cork has such a lucrative transatlantic market, why did nobody replace the Norwegian services?

This Shannon v Cork argument is going on with years and it's pathetic. The two airports should compliment each other, not detract.

Where are you getting hundreds of millions from?? Waterfords runway extension of 900 metres is projected to cost about 15 million.

Great if true, but it's Corkbeo, so it's more than likely they've picked that out of thin air for clicks.

Read the report I linked from Cork County Council. There is no anticipated topological issues associated with the northern extension of the runway recommended by the council.

Its best report we have, of course issues may come up at a full engineering survey but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that there would be. I don't understand how you have better information than the council who commissioned the report to say the extension would cost hundreds of millions?

This.

I am fine with using Shannon for transatlantic, and Cork for European. Both are far better than Dublin in terms of accessibility for the thousands of business travellers in the Munster region. I think they are complimentary. What's lacking is the numbers of flights year round, the wasted airport capacity.

Agree, bring those partial services up to all year and expand the number of days being served (Lufthansa, Swiss Air, Air France). Heck, even Brussels Air would be handy, the train from Amsterdam to Brussels is crammed and can be 2-3 hours long depending on the time of arrival. Brussels airport is a similar airport to Cork I think... bound to be slots there.

I wonder do Cork airport have any recent surveys on where their passengers actually go.

The new runway at Dublin was 3,100 metres, the proposed extension at Cork is 247 metres. They are completely incomparable projects. What exactly is the geographical nature of this project that would drive the cost up? There is no noticeable change in gradiant at the site of the proposed extension.

Interesting

I had just passed through the airport when I wrote that... and it was so spacious and compact I thought there must be free slots (like there are in Cork) But you're spot on, it's over 2MM per month and very busy during the day, where Cork is 2.5MM per year.

Yeah, I've an aversion to CDG that I need to get over. My iffy experiences there have been with transfers, so should consider it as destination with a train connection.

The early morning AMS can have slots, could be 5 mins late leaving or could be 30/40 mins late. I'd factor in landing an hour late just in case. The mid-day/afternoon flight usually has less of a slot delay leaving but it can land into cork a little late, presumably because of slots earlier in the morning.

The CDG can have slots but it's not often, again it can land here a little late so factor in an extra hour, just in case.

LHR can be hit with bad slots too but (I think) it's usually worse on the earlier flights.

STN very rarely has a slot.

Frankfurt and Zurich are supposed to be good airports for connections, just depends on if you can get to your final destination with your landing time over there or not.

Manchester, Luton and Gatwick are very busy airports with flights everywhere you could wish to go to. They might not be the best airports to use for a connecting flight tho.

Looks like Swiss might be scrapping their weekly ski flight to Geneva for the coming winter, with all flights marked as sold out on the website

Aer Lingus have come in with Lyon this year. They also do Munich and Ryanair doing Bergamo