New York and the Boston areas are plenty to hope for on the wish list for Cork Airport for the foreseeable future. I think there is little chance that there will ever be an Atlanta service from Cork and the runway is the very least of the matter in that case. Not enough critical mass around Cork to somewhere like Atlanta. As for Canada, well if the A319 is big enough for the St Johns to Heathrow service you would wonder where a market could be found to and from Cork to the Newfoundland capital. Similarly with Halifax where would the market emerge from to and from Cork? A pity especially when I too have some local Cork connections whom, coincidentally, travel a few times each year to both St Johns and Halifax. Many the long journey they have had from Cork via LHR to either Toronto or Montreal and onto Halifax or St Johns, journeys that have at times turned out to be gruellers at time due to missed connections or other problems.
As for the smaller types for some of the European routes from Cork and more frequency to European capitals. The 737-500 was a great aeroplane for Cork to introduce new routes from Aer Lingus. The good economies of scale affored to FR with the 737-800 and to EI with A320 just does not always blend in with Cork Airport in my opinion. Look at how well bmi baby have utilised the 737-300/500 sized aircraft as it looks like they are well up to EI challenge on the routes to Birmingham and Manchester from Cork. Frankfurt or Dusseldorf; Geneva, Lyon or Milan might all be worth trying from Cork with older aircraft up to 120/130 seaters. Some of the proposed routes above would be seasonal only like in my suggestion to Geneva or Lyon or maybe to somwhere in Austria. Not much room though for low fares so the locals in Cork would have to fork out a premium to get to these new delights.
No doubt Ryanair will want to continue competing for Cork pax with lower fares to destinations close to the above named bactch of cities - the only problem for Cork people and Cork Airport is that the competing will be more than likely from Shannon Airport and not Cork?
Where do you go from there?
Last edited by Tom the Tenor; 17th Apr 2007 at 17:15.