Arklow International Airport

Bureaucracy on a bus route....

Whats this about? how do the scammers get the money? do they fundraise or something?

DX now have a bus Airport-City Centre every 15 minutes most of the day. There's also the slower, but still not 50 mins, Aircoach 700 which has 2-4 an hour depending on the day of the week. So there's also a bus always ready to go - just different operators; just as it is at at Bergamo

Most of the out-of-the-way airports which Ryanair use only exist because of the Cold War.

Not too difficult to set up an airport on the cheap if the USAF already helpfully bought all the land and built a nice big runway and apron for you.

Nobody in their right mind would do such a project from scratch (Ciudad Real's purpose was probably more about backhanders than flights).

This Arklow project crayon drawing is just daft beyond belief.

It is an example of an airport in a highly populated province/conurbation. Hahn is not, Athlone International Airport is not.

If to model on Bergamo the airport needs to be sited somewhere with higher population densities e.g. east/south east of Irland. The people proposing these don't care about long term viability and just looking for fools and their easily separated money such as pension companies and Arabs with too much money. If they can get a local government to finance partially so much the better.

going to Bergamo again after flying through Bergamo and overnighting a few weeks ago.

Cheap flight and cheap car hire to see the lakes.

There is already a proposal to stop the Rosslare Dublin train at Bray or Greystones and get everyone to complete their journey on the dart. As in all trains from Rosslare/Wexford/Arkow would end in Bray. The reason for this is the daily Connelly to Bray and on to Rosslare train causes havock to dart passengers every morning and evening as darts need to be cleared from the tracks to allow a non dart to skip stations.

There is only a single train line from Bray all the way south meaning regular bi directional trains to the new airport would need to stop at a 2 track station or siding to allow a train in the other direction to pass. In reality trains won't wait for flights and if it existed busses would be main mode of getting there by public transport and a massive car park. Even by train it's a long slow way along the dart line into the city centre.

Nobody takes it that seriously

Why dont Ryanair use Shannon more? Costs, too far from Dublin, not their Dublin base so not worth the change? Ideally Ryanair would buy a % share or 100% share in an existing airport and shift some of the traffic there.

How can we get Ryanair to use the likes of Shannon?

How can we get Ryanair to use the likes of Shannon?

Short answer: You don't.

Long answer: You present them a business case that demonstrates that they'll be able to operate from Shannon at a profit. Same as for any other airline. They're businesses, not charities. If there's a profit to be made, and it fits into their business model and they have the requisite capacity, they'll serve a destination.

That's what makes all these flights of fancy about getting more airlines to use Shannon or Cork, or Belfast, or Ballyarsebackwards Regional Airport so frustrating. You can't just tell an airline to go fly there anymore, that's not how things work. Canada tried it with Montreal Mirabel, and that ended up being a colossal train wreck. London has been trying for decades got get more flights to use any airport but LHR, and yet that airport is still choked with traffic. Forcing airlines to Shannon worked when the airport was needed as a refueling or technical stop, but those times are long gone. These days, it's all. About. The. Money!

As for Arklow International, yeah right. The only good thing that'll come out of this is a session of Airport CEO when I boot up Steam tonight.

Because they make more money elsewhere

They will never buy an airport as they would not want to be forced to pay for the running of an airport.

@thomil Montreal Mirabel had its legs cut from under it by the local government, Olympic debts, and a massive shift in Canada's centre of gravity toward Ontario. The airlines actually liked it. A planned rail line directly into the city was canned, and even the road link was poor. The government unwittingly set it up to fail by routing international flights to Mirabel, but keeping domestic ones at Dorval.. that made Montreal the worst possible entry point into Canada, and so foreign visitors shifted to other airports where transfers to your final destination didn't involve an hour in a bus.

Passengers actually loved the new airport, except for the pain in the arse of actually getting there, and the airlines loved the new airport operationally. Making Mirabel work would have meant finally closing Dorval, but that would have meant spending billions on the road and rail that had been promised back in 1974, so the cheap option won, and Montreal still has a crappy airport, and visitors to Canada still choose to enter via Toronto instead...

There isn't going to be a second airport for Dublin at any location.

Eamon Ryan has spoken

https://www.newstalk.com/news/eamon-ryan-arklow-airport-plan-would-have-to-benefit-the-public-and-show-value-for-money-1715901