Waterford Airport.

Kilkenny? !!

Some people here do not understand how the airlines they're quoting on their interest in Waterford even work…

Aer Lingus is a hub and spoke airline, Emerald airlines act as their feeder, they are NOT going to base an aircraft or route in Waterford for that reason alone.

Logan Air are a UK based carrier, who only serve to benefit their operation in Scotland, Waterford is not going to help them there, they'd be looking at larger destinations.

Ryanair, Easyjet and Wizz air are the only airlines in this area of the world who operate a point to point network instead who'd remotely be interested.

Easyjet and Wizz won't come here as Ryanair will then out compete them.

Ryanair are the only airline who are feasible, to keep other airlines out of Ireland, this is their goal.

Matching Government investment is €12m of the €27m total.

€12m is 0.04% of the potential €30,000m surplus.

Or to rationalise the scale further - say you have 30 grand in your pocket and I ask you to lend me 12 quid for an airport. You then make a song and dance about it and then tell me to **** off.

was only talking to a business that would directly benefit from an airport expansion, both of us agreed waterford currently isnt viable as a passenger airport, but probably is viable as a cargo hub, this really should be considered!

Eamonn Ryan is stepping down, probably means there won't be a decision made on the airport until after the election at this stage.

https://www.thejournal.ie/eamon-ryan-stepping-down-as-green-party-leader-6412667-Jun2024/

I thoroughly agree, but given the lack of action thus far I can't see him getting the airport pushed through before the election. Hope I'm wrong though, given it was probably the joint top issue on the doorsteps in the recent election it would be an easy win for the government parties to get it approved before calling to the doorsteps.

I don't disagree with you, but the point remains - they'll ultimately need an airline to use the facility and he's not making positive noises.

A reminder that strategically Ryanair will not allow it's near monopoly across Ireland to be weakened by not serving Waterford. It may prefer not to, but it will turn up.

Be careful listening to O'Leary, watch what he does. Although in fairness to O'Leary he said exactly this to a Dail committee earlier this year.

I take it that extending the runway will allow for additional commercial opportunities such as freight, training, plane repair/maintenance etc?

It doesn't have to solely be passenger flights. That said, would gladly pay the extra to fly from Waterford rather than Dublin.

Loganair fly CFN-GLA and DUB-ABZ in ROI - as others said they have a particular target market with some costly fares (check in bags included etc). They recently pulled the Inverness route from Dublin also.

Emerald are focused on DUB for feeders to transatlantic with the exception of ORK-BRS which was always a good performer even going back to Aer Arann days. It is very unlikely they would base at WAT and a W rotation looks unlikely with their current business model and contractual agreements as others have said. They do operate into LGW for BA at the minute from DUB which could expand .. who knows !

Eastern, Blue Islands & Aurigny are other UK regional airlines with the former operating no routes into ROI since they pulled SOU-DUB last year and the latter only flying to DUB seasonally to provide Channel Island tourism. All 3 wouldn’t have capacity nor would WAT align to their business models either.

WAT will need to look beyond regional airlines as we’ve seen before how volatile they are too many times in fact … it will be down to FR really to get the first route in place and more may follow IF we get the runway extension that is :)

posters here saying it won’t work! Yet if this was in the west all you would hear about it is the poor west. United in calling for funding. It’s absolute pittance in terms of government budgets. Politics and Dublin centric mentality are to blame here. We have no air connectivity in the South East then again the government doesn’t want to acknowledge this region it would be better carved up between Dublin & Cork!

Week 27.

With the half year milestone now behind us, Government continues to sit on the current proposal. Offering no progress on this, nor offering any alternative, Government remains utterly inept at solving the problem of the South East's poor connectivity.

Unplugged and isolated, the region continues to be hamstrung, and will continue to struggle. This against a backdrop of a globalised world where connections mean everything.

The three of them would polish a turd and tell you it was a diamond. Party hacks.

€2 billion and here we are on our hands and knees looking for €12 million that would connect us internationally.

This is the kind of stuff that infuriates me, yes the cork to Limerick road is needed, yes the government could have opted to use an alternative (reducing the cost) that would have connected all of Ireland's cities but no we'll horse on with a €2 billion project, meanwhile the airport business plan sits on the ministers desks

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/2bn-limerick-cork-m20-motorway-with-cycle-lanes-to-be-first-of-its-kind-in-ireland/a251329291.html