Originally Posted by
coefficientoflift
Learjet,
Many interesting and valid points there. And I think your right with about 90% of what you say. But I still believe this could work, given the right a/c.
Many routes, ie cork city centre to dublin city centre, although served by good roads / train, still takes 3-5 hours depending on traffic, time of day, day of week etc!
If you can do point to point in under an hour, surely there is a market there!?
With the right ticket pricing and aircraft, you could be onto a winner!?
my two cents...
As I said in my post that started this thread, the concept appeals to the romantic in me and I wish them well, I honestly do. But it will only work if they focus on the niches where they have a chance of offering an attractive and competitive product, and that's going to be largely a tourism-based market rather than Cork-Dublin commuters. Learjet50 sums it up well:
Originally Posted by Learjet50
Seaplane operators make Money flying Inter-Island NOT over Island.
Consider:
- if I'm a Cork business person wanting to come to Dublin city centre for a meeting, I can already fly Ryanair (cheap, no choice of schedules), drive (hassle, traffic) or take the train (frequent, straightforward, reasonably comfortable especially if my business pays for first class). For a time-sensitive business passenger the train seems like a good option.
- Against that you're proposing a seaplane service from - oh, I don't know - Tivoli or Blackrock up to Dublin Port? No real improvement in location convenience - I still need to get taxis at both ends - but some time saving, fair enough: say a 1 hour flight rather than a 2.5 hour train journey.
- However, the biggest single problem is that the seaplane is going to be daylight VFR...
- VFR is the first part of this problem. If I have to be up in Dublin for an 0900 meeting, there's not much point in me pitching up to take the 0715 flight only to find that conditions are not VFR and I'll have to get the train instead.
- And "daylight" is the second part of this problem. Sunrise and sunset today in Dublin were 0837 and 1619. (If anyone's curious, Vancouver's official daylight was 37 minutes longer than us today). Even if I run forward a couple of months to March 01 2011, sunrise is 0713 and sunset is 1800. Sunrise is effectively dictating the earliest possible departure time and sunset (minus a margin) the latest feasible arrival. Do you really think it'll be competitive to offer a last departure from Dublin at about 1500 in January and say 1640 in March? (I'm allowing 20 minutes of delay contingency - unless the aircraft is an amphibian which can divert to a real airport, that's likely not enough).
- You're postulating that there is a time-sensitive market segment looking for a faster Cork/Dublin city-centre-to-city-centre journey time than the train (or the plane) can give them today. Fair enough, there may be. But if you are time-sensitive it's because you have to be somewhere at a given time for a meeting or a pitch or an interview or whatever, and that means the alternative needs to be reliable above all. Loch Lomond Seaplanes seem to be doing a good job building up their operation over in Scotland. But even they say,
Considering the challenging operating environment of the seaplane customers are advised that if they absolutely, positively have to be somewhere at a particular time perhaps the use of another form of transport should be considered.
With the right ticket pricing and aircraft, you could be onto a winner!?
Sorry...
