CORK - 5

[NC2]

Airport Debt

The following article appeared on the Irish Examiner wesbite this afternoon. Could there be an end in sight to the debt issue or is this just more posturing by Fianna Fáil and the PD's before the election?

It does look like politicians are getting a bit rattled about the issue!!

It appears that the attempt by the DAA to sell off of land before the transfer of the assets to the CAA seems to have backfired and is now on hold.


Cork Airport deal 'to reduce debt burden'

The Government is close to ending the row over Cork Airport Authority’s debt, a senior Fianna Fáil politician has said.

Fianna Fáil and the PD’s had faced an election backlash over the huge debt which is currently levied on the Cork Airport Authority (CAA) under the existing takeover plan.

At the moment the authority must carry €100m of the overall €220m debt

However, a senior Fianna Fáil politician predicted today that a revised plan will be announced within weeks.

Deputy Noel O’Flynn also disclosed that the Government is understood to have blocked the sell-off of any more land at Cork Airport, pending an agreement on the takeover by local management.

Deputy O’Flynn said he believes that the proposals being put to cabinet in the coming weeks will “significantly reduce” the financial burden on the new Cork Airport Authority.

Sources indicated land held by Cork Airport will not be sold off in advance of the company being handed over and will be an asset to the new company.


Land in the airport haD been offered for sale or proposal for development recently by the existing body in charge of Cork Airport, Dublin Airport Authority.

Deputy O’Flynn said he believed an “acceptable compromise” had now been identified.

He said: “I am happy that we have stopped the sell off by the Dublin Airport Authority of valuable land holdings in the airport, in advance of the takeover.

“I understand that the land, which is suitable for major development and worth in the region of 130 million, will remain in the ownership of the new Cork Airport Authority as part of the hand-over deal.”

The president of Cork Chamber, Roger Flack, welcomed the proposal, adding that the land holding was a critical factor for the new management company.

ENDS/

[brian_dromey]

Its good to see that the debt thing is being sorted. Its about time. Now the CAA need to get attracting airlines - my list would be

bmi - GLA/LHR
bmibaby - more frewuency BHX/MAN
Aer Lingus/SAS - Scandanavian Destinations
Continental/Delta-JFK/EWR
flyBe/Aer Arann - more frequency to regional UK destinations

Maybe soon!

[en2r]

New Aer Arann ATR

The first new Aer Arann plane will arrive next month and will be based at Cork and will operate Cork-Dublin. Presumably replacing the ATR 42 as well as continuing the fight against Ryanair by offering the comfort of a brand new plane on the Cork-Dublin route.

[Tom the Tenor]

Hope she will be CATII! No use having a nice new aeroplane for Cork unless she can land in low viz operations. RE cant be playing into the hands of FR!

[Tom the Tenor]

A few odds & ends. On top of the news that Astraeus are due to operate a Sunday afternoon flight from Cork to ACE with a 757 aircraft during the summer season there is a heads up now that Astraeus are also now down to do the seasonal flight from Cork to Verona on Saturdays as well. The flight is due out ex Cork at 1940 and due back into Leeside at 0135 Sundays.

Where does this leave the ACE flight on Sundays? The Astraeus 757 is due in on Sundays from Gatwick at 3 pm and due to head back again to LGW around 2 am on the Mondays. Is it now to be the one aeroplane? As welcome as they would be it is hard to see two AEU machines turning up at Cork every weekend! Mind you a 737 and a 757 would be great when you consider the long flights both types do in AEU service down to deepest Africa from LGW in the 757 and the westbound flights to Deer Lake in Newfoundland on the 737.

Faith, 'twould give you a bit of an ol' taste for the longhaul!

[Tom the Tenor]

How about this for a good one! The main Irish government political party, Fianna Fail, today published their maninfesto for the upcoming General Election which should be due to be called soon for some time in May. One of the main issues they are promoting strongly in their manifesto is the elimination of Ireland's National Debt! It is a pity that the Fianna Fail ministers in government and especially Cork's own boy wonder, Minister Micheal Martin, are not as keen to promote this very same idea as regards the elimination of the Cork Airport debt!

On Saturday night a Tui/Britannia 767 returning to Cork from Lourdes with a load of pilgrim children diverted to Shannon in low visibility. The RVRs were up around 1200 to 1300 metres at the time but the cloud was something around BR 100 ft, BR 300, BR 6000 feet. The low cloud must have put the kybosh on it for the poor kids. It seems that even when the RVRs are okay Cork Airport still gets to be punished?

Cork Airport's Chairman, Mr Joe Gantley, last week took over as President of Cork Chamber. The outgoing President, Mr Spencer Flack, was not slow to stick up for the cause of Cork Airport in the debate of recent months on the debt. Wonder what approach Cork Chamber will now have on the matter with the arrival of the new President?

[ryan2000]

Ryan2000

Interesting to see what Thompsonfly's minima for Cork is. Their 737's were CAT2 in 2004/5 when they operated from Coventry. Cloud was very broken on Saturday evening and everything else landed.

[majik]

More frequency

Hi one and all. I've been reading the forums for a while but this is my first post. I've been very interested to hear peoples opinions on a t/a service from Cork and the expansion/cancellation of EI, FR and WW routes as well.

As a Corkman now living and working in Canada, I have a very big interest in new t/a route as I travel back and forth quite regularly. Other posters have mentioned the current state of the runways vis-a-vis handling larger aircraft B767, B757 A330 etc etc. This would need a capital investment which we all know is not going to happen in the near future.

Without a reliable infrastructure Cork will not attract a legacy carrier, no DL, CO or US or AA. They already operate out of SNN and DUB, why bother allocate another 767 to an airport (Cork) only 80 miles and 160 miles away, this does not make economic sense. Of the legacy carriers only possibly DL and/or CO look like the front runners. It is definitely within COs operational plan to utilise an airport like Cork. They have a habit of flying to national regional airports throughout europe, e.g. Belfast & Glasgow. However I doubt they will as they will feel they have enough capcity on the BFS and DUb routes. Will they pull Shannon? Not likely, but Delta might and if they do they will likely offer a direct t/a route to ATL from ORK.

However don't ever rule out a new route to Canada. YYT and YHZ, even YUL are well within comfortable reach of the range of a319/20 or B737-ER. To put this in perspectibe ORK-YYT is shorter than current flights from ORK to Crete. These kinda of routes would be seasonal but AC already operate a summer DUB-YYZ route, the market is ripe for the likes of Zoom and Air Transat.

However as one final point, there has to be an increase in frequency to the major european hubs. EI 4x daily to LHR is still to little 5x would be about right. 2x daily to AMS, don't make me laugh this is an absolute joke, a major european hub and Cork only offers two flights a day nearly twelve hours apart! Ditto with CDG and no flights whatsoever to FRA!!! These frequency issues need to shorted out long before a t/a service becomes operational.

thanks for reading
majik

[Rallye EI-BFP]

I dont think Delta will be leaving Shannon anytime soon.

With a new dedicated SNN-JFK this summer...............their not going anytime soon. An airline doesnt need to 'pull' Shannon to operate to CRK at all!

[840]

As regards the frequency to major European hubs, we go back to the old problem of the size of the aircraft based in Cork. If we had the right operator with jets in the 80-100 passenger range we would almost certainly see more frequency to AMS and CDG and more than likely a service to FRA. As it stands, there is nobody between the range limited 66 seat ATR-72s and the 174 seat A320s. However, if I was an operator of Fokker 100s, Embraer 195s etc., I'd be quite wary of basing aircraft in Cork, considering Aer Lingus' and Ryanair's ability to mess up the operation.

With respect to Canada, aren't operations to Canada still governed by a strict bilateral that includes the Shannon stopover?

[Tom the Tenor]

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?

[majik]

The bi-lateral will fall, it was protectionism at its worst. SNN now has a glorious example in NOC, that an airport can without hiding behind some outdated agreement attract new a t/a route. SNN has the history/infrastructure/ tourist attractions to not lose t/a routes once the bi-lateral goes.

I very much agree that ORK would be better served by a RJ service rather than a full a320/737-700/800 for some routes however anybody with a vague interest in the airline business (like myself!) can do the maths and tell you that at current oil prices running RJs as opposed turboprops is economical suicide unless you have a very large fleet of them which brings economies of scale into play, Jet Magic anyone?

With regards to the YYT/YHZ route I mentioned. There would be a big demand for the YYT route in the summer. There are massive connections between Ireland and Newfoundland, particularly Waterford. Newfies even speak like people from Waterford . As with regards to demand, well if Zoom feel there is enough demand from the likes of CWL and BFS to run flights to YHZ, YYZ, YUL and YVR, then surely there would be enough demand from Cork.

[ryan2000]

Problem with A319's on long haul and CRJ on short haul is that they require a higher yield to make them viable. Cork people will shout for direct services but will drive to Shannon or fly via Dublin if the price is right.

[Charlie Roy]

Driving to Shannon

Cork people will shout for direct services but will drive to Shannon or fly via Dublin if the price is right.

I'm not convinced of this When Corkonians want to fly to Manchester, Edinburgh, London, Bristol, Madrid, Rome, Barcelona etc. then the vast majority use Cork airport!

I do however accept that lots of Corkonians are driving to Shannon for other flights to the likes of Prestwick, Milan Bergamo, Biarritz, Brussels Charleroi, Düsseldorf Weeze, Lodz, USA and all the other destinations available from Shannon but not from Cork.

[schoolkid]

All this talk of diversions at ORK has got me thinking...

Perhaps that new RE circular livery on the -500 is an artistic interpretation of the RE fleet amongst others in the hold above the southern capital on another glorious CAT 2day!!

[840]

I think whether people will travel from Dublin or Shannon depending on price has a lot to do with the reason for the trip.

Leisure passengers will, business passengers won't.

Then you come down to who forms the bulk of the passengers on a route. On Cork-Amsterdam, it's definitely business passengers, who would pay more for a frequent service. I'd suspect that Paris would be pretty evenly split.

Considering that the Amsterdam route is almost half-sustained by interlining passengers, more frequency could introduce interlining options with the possibility of reduced onward prices, so it wouldn't even suffer too much for the price conscious.

I wouldn't even be too shocked if it happened on the Amsterdam route. If CityJet were ever to take over DUB-AMS, it would mean the end of the codeshare between Aer Lingus and KLM on ORK-AMS and I'd imagine in those circumstances that CityJet might also start an ORK-AMS service, because I doubt KLM would want to lose the 120-150 or so dailly passengers who are travelling onward with them.

[CCR]

The new owners are using the Radisson SAS brand for the hotel.

[en2r]

CCR
Thanks for the info. Sorry I thought Radisson was a chain not a franchise. I knew they were initially marketing them as CC Hotels but I didn't know they had changed to Radisson SAS.

[Tom the Tenor]

It may be noted that the rebranded Radison Cork Airport Hotel now has a new car park charge in place unlike the former Great Southern Hotel. Parking is free for up to 20 minutes and priced at 2 Euros for up to three hours parking. I cannot remember what the charge is for 3 hours plus but think it is about 2 euros an hours thereafter. It is quite noticeable the amount of cars that have now disappeared from the car park since the new charges were put in place!

There was some sea fog again this morning around Cork and the early morning Ryanair arrival from Stansted, FR901, eventually diverted to Shannon below CATII minima. Her sistership, FR9843 from Dublin, had more luck when the RVR went up around 400 metres and she made it in. Last night's EI868 from Barcelona was last in the line up of EI, Wizz and RE arrivals and ended up having to divert to Shannon in ever reducing visibility. Cant help thinking if a parallel taxiway would have helped the situation for the BCN pax? The aircraft returned from Shannon to Cork just after 9 am today as the EI2882 not long after the diverting FR901 would have landed at Shannon from Cork!

Stone mad.

[ryan2000]

Can't see any further capital investment at Cork as long as the DAA is in control. It is obvious that the hotel car-park was being used for free parking by people in the know. I do think it's unfair to charge hotel customers though. It's bound to impact on their lunch trade. I heard that there are renewed attempts to get ORK-GLA back from October.