CORK - 4

[Rallye EI-BFP]

Shannon55-

RYN are an american airline operating B757's and B737's
RYR is the Irish one

Careful with those

[shannon55]

Whoops! Thanks Rallye EI-BFP!

[Tom the Tenor]

Doubt if Air Berlin or Lufthansa will take too much interest in Cork now that easyJet have been shown the road and as is likely CSA will be gone too from next January so it is very hard to see any European airline ever having any interest again in Cork especially when at a mere whim Ryanair can throw on an almost competing route from a European base if they have a mind to with a few FREE - just pay taxes & charges type fares and you can kiss goodbye to your Air Berlins, Lufthansas, easyJets etc, etc.

Nah, as long as there are streels of supposedly loyal Cork folk willing to traipse their way up along the Mallow Road at dawn to Shannon to save tuppence to fly with Ryanair because of the curious way the taxes and charges are fixed so low on lots of flights ex Shannon the home airport at Cork has not got a prayer and more so if local charges are set so much higher than in Shannon as well as those in Dublin too for that matter.

Not that the Cork branch of the DAA care much anyway as they are all the one happy family with their sister airports in Shannon and Dublin just like it was in the old Aer Rianta. What's in a name? Same ol' ducking and diving.

The golden age is on it's last legs at Cork Airport. If Cork does get another EI Airbus that could be her lot for a long, long time to come and if Ryanair achieve their 50% plus controlling interest in Aer Lingus they will do everything to fill their Shannon aeroplanes first and if that means killing off Cork routes and aeroplanes that is what will happen.

And yes, the Shannon stopver and the overall dark culture behind it is still showing it's sinister machinations through all these recent hectic developments, you can be sure of it!

[Rallye EI-BFP]

Well said.

[N by NW]

SNN Users

Not sure about the Cork folk traipsing to SNN

Attitude from people I've met who have travelled to SNN seems to be 'once is enough' - four hour round trip; four in the morning start to catch early flights out of SNN; cost of petrol and parking at SNN when a taxi ride or lift from relative would suffice for ORK and all for a short-hop trip.

[Rallye EI-BFP]

Well there is a choice between an early morning flight and evening flight with some flights.....therefore.....

[Charlie Roy]

Katowice

From June 2007 Katowice will increase to 4xweekly

Times still are the best though...

[en2r]

Charlie Roy

Has anyone travelled on Wizzair from Cork. Do you know how the service is doing? What are loads like? I guess they must be doing OK if they're adding a fourth weekly flight as well as the new route to Gdansk.

[Tom the Tenor]

The mother of a Polish woman I know in the job has travelled on the Wizz from Katowice. The family is from Krakow so it will be interesting to see if they try Central Wings from November. I know that there is a gang of them coming to Cork for Christmas so it will be good to see some Polish traffic coming this way for the holiday. Christmas in Cork - what more could anyone ever ask for as a present!

Good news to report is that Aer Arann are increasing the frequency of Saturday and Sunday flights to Dublin from two to three from the start of the winter schedule. Best of luck of them and it would suggest Aer Arann are not too concerned by Ryanair increasing frequency on their Dublin flights from three to four a day for the winter. If anything, it looks like the two services are complementing each other much to Cork's delight. Who knows, Cork may yet achieve her 3 million pax for 2006! Wonder if RE might like to sneak in and go to Prestwick a few times a week ahead of talk about EI or FR going to GLA or PIK or, are they happy as they are with their Edinburgh frequencies?

Ryanair's launch of the Madrid-Shannon service looks at face value like having a go at Cork and her new Aer Lingus sevice to the Spanish capital. Starting from zero to so much capacity to Madrid from both Cork and Shannon is frankly very amusing and it sure does make you think if Ryanair have an axe to grind against Cork and more so if you consider how disinterested Ryanair themselves appear to be in starting any new routes from Cork.

However, is it in some ways not unlike Aer Lingus and the North Atlantic ex Cork and the excuses put forward there for inaction. Excuses like how it would split the yield between the two airports if there were flights from both Shannon and Cork to America? Perhaps it is the same with Ryanair, maybe it would be too high a price to pay to start more flights from Cork as the yields might become just too diluted on their profit margains ex Shannon as there would almost certainly be a need to have at least some shared routes with any new ones from Cork?

[CCR]

TTT, the only competition between Cork and Shannon airports are for customers from the adjoining counties in Munster. Cork people overwhelmingly use Cork airport.

[ryan2000]

Cork

Heard that Cork may get its first Eastern as distinct from Central European destination in early 2007.

[840]

Care to define Easter Europe for us

Would I be correct in thinking that the Baltic States count?

[ryan2000]

New Cork flight

Baltic states count. I genuinely don't know which city but I did here that it's an eastern european destination. Of course it could be Poznan or Lodz as they are probably as viable as Warsaw, Gdansk, Kracow etc.

[en2r]

New Eastern Europe Destination

Originally Posted by 840

Care to define Easter Europe for us

Would I be correct in thinking that the Baltic States count?

It's probably Riga with Air Baltic. They made a special flight to Cork over the August Bank Holiday and there was speculation of a service being launched then. The only thing is that Ryanair would probably launch a competing service from Shannon just to spite Cork

[daz211]

Well we all know what will happen if RIGA is the destination,
"what that coming over the hill is it a monster" no just MOL in drag

[Charlie Roy]

Sports bar

Interesting article about the airport's "sports" bar:

http://www.irishpost.co.uk/news/stor...=4794&cat=news

[840]

Any queuing problems are because there aren't enough check-in desks used per flights rather than because there aren't enough check-in desks. You will frequently see a long queue, with 20 empty desks. But then fares would go up and passengers would have something else to complain about.

That said, there also seems to be a shortage of Aer Lingus self-service check-in machines (at least during the 5:30am-7am rush). I don't know how much they cost, but a few more would be helpful. Of course, there would be no point if online check-in comes on stream soon though.

Any word on the potential EI pilot base in Cork?

[en2r]

AerLingus Fast Pass Machines

Originally Posted by 840

Any queuing problems are because there aren't enough check-in desks used per flights rather than because there aren't enough check-in desks. You will frequently see a long queue, with 20 empty desks. But then fares would go up and passengers would have something else to complain about.

That said, there also seems to be a shortage of Aer Lingus self-service check-in machines (at least during the 5:30am-7am rush). I don't know how much they cost, but a few more would be helpful. Of course, there would be no point if online check-in comes on stream soon though.

Any word on the potential EI pilot base in Cork?

There are 4 Aer Lingus fast pass check-in machines in Cork. I recently passed through Heathrow where there were only 3 machines even though there are more than Aer Lingus 20 flights a day so Cork isn't doing too badly. Personally I never queue to check in for Aer Lingus Flights. Whatever queue there is at the machines it is usually only a fraction of that at the check-in desks. As for the pilot base that will probably come whenever Aer Lingus base a much needed fifth aircraft at Cork

[840]

Originally Posted by en2r

There are 4 Aer Lingus fast pass check-in machines in Cork. I recently passed through Heathrow where there were only 3 machines even though there are more than Aer Lingus 20 flights a day so Cork isn't doing too badly.

I suppose the difference is that the flights are better staggered at Heathrow, whereas first thing in the morning they have 4 A320s going out of Cork in a 1 hour period. But this is the only time of day that it's a problem.

As I understand it, Internet check-in isn't too far off now, so the investment probably isn't worthwhile.

[shannon55]

Originally Posted by EI-RB

There is too many self check in kiosks in Dublin ! It wouldn't be the end of the world if they sent two or three down to Cork. There should be at least 2 per an aircraft !

That's true....there is a load of them in DUB and anytime I've visited DUB, while some of them are constantly in use, there always is a fair amount of them not being used.