Re: CORK
It was not a budget surplus in Ireland. It was just 2.5 billion less to borrow than was projected. Spending 163 million on a project at ORK which is already too small and which the unions are currently refusing to move into on health and safety grounds is not clever.
Forget pie in the sky flights to America off a foggy short runway. Cork needs to worry about bread and butter flights from a small catchment area of just 500,000 pax. Worry about Birmingham Uk and not Birmingham Alabama.
EURO 8 million a year debt repayments and a further EURO 4 million a year in maintenance contracts and repairs on the new EURO 163 million capital project are the reality. They need to find EURO 12 million annually in additional revenue the day they move a few 100 yeards into the new badly designed building.
Forget all this rubbish about CAT III. The land is too sloping - it will never happen.
Five different operators over the last 4 years have anounced USA flights, started taking bookings and cancelled them before they started. Seems like a pattern there. If there is such a theoretical demand out there - well these mystery Cork people - don't seem to want to spend the money.
You need a strong sales guy at Cork. John Smyth is gone nearly a year - then he pops up to negotiate on behalf on Aer Lingus to screw a deal at Cork Airport. That speaks volumes.