If you were to start from scratch
A proper airport in the middle of Ireland.
With 2 sets of parallel runways along N/S and E/W
Terminal capacity of 40 million.
Motorway to Dublin, Galway. Sligo (Dual carriage way to Letterkenny), Waterford (spurs to Kilkenny and Clonmel) Cork/Limerick (spur to Tralee).
Close everything else.
Not going to happen.
We are left with the legacies of previous aircraft requirements and political interference as regards where our airports are
This what we have and we must work with it.
I want to see DUB get the second runway
It will when the traffic levels are there.
It is factored into the CAR determination.
€100m of Shannon Airport debt quashed, airport set-up into new authority.
Shannon is bundled with Shannon development to offload any State future liability.
After the next general election it will be Cork's turn.
You will find that they include any land bank in the vicinity of Cork into a "CAA" and offload it too.
By then the outstanding debt for the works done should have reduced to a level where the Minister of the day will wave his hand and make it go away.
Once there is a stand alone set up in Cork and Shannon the fun will start.
EU legislation in relation to airports was intended to promote competition? We'd be better off under the old style rules which allowed Governments issue licences for routes.
The single market is god, all 500 million citizens.
Ireland has less than 5 million citizens, 1% of the single market.
Cork/Limerick/Galway axis even less.
Competition has driven down fares giving rise to the Low-Cost model we all love.
RYANAIR and AER LINGUS will extort the maximum concessions they can from the 2 operators.
This will in turn lead them to start cutting their costs in a big way.
Staff have delivered many changes at Cork in the last 5 years in terms of pay and conditions
And more will be expected.
In a purely commercial environment (ie no state ownership or subsidies of any kind) it's very unlikely all 3 would survive
Outside of Dublin in a pure commercial world
NONE of the others airports (Cork/Shannon/Kerry/Knock/Waterford/Sligo/Donegal) will survive.
They may cover most or all of their day to day costs but infrastructure will have to be bankrolled by the state.