Aerlingus Cargo facilities at Cork are minimal and they truck all of it to SNN and DUB. The critical factor would be whether an A330 could take a full compliment of pax to JFK or BOS as freight would probably be a non issue in the short term.
If a transatlantic service was established the case for a runway extension would be very strong. As it stands its very hard to justify as there are no restrictions on any existing scheduled or charter flights with the possible exception of the HEMUS TU154's operating to Bourgas and Varna.
I heard that reps from the Cork Board held a meeting today with the Dept.of Transport.
The financial situation has to be clarified. If Cork is saddled with the full 163million euro debt, we can forget about any additional expenditure for the forseeable future i.e. the next decade.