CORK - 5

[Ger Cork]

I wonder are the Cork Airport Authority better off accepting a small part of the debt associated with the expansion of Cork Airport. I think they have said they could afford an amount of €50 million in which they could probably make do with to finally separate from Dublin Airport Authority. My question would be can Cork be able to attract a number of new carriers and to keep what they have without having to increase charges, there dear enough as it is. New carriers I would love to see Cork attract in future are the likes of Iberia, SAS, Crossair, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Baltic and Air France. By the way, is it true that Air France or CityJet want to start new flights from Cork Airport to Paris CDG and London City when Cork is on it’s own autonomy. I wonder how many other carriers are interested in starting new flights to Cork. Here is one more to finish with, Polish Airlines to Warsaw. Of course it all depends on the debt situation, but i think quiet a few carriers want to start flights from Cork. I know 6 or 7 carriers see it as a more lucrative option than Shannon and I recon the airlines I mentioned would come in and maybe one or two more, who knows.

I don’t think the problem is Aer Lingus and Ryanair having a base in cork. The obvious problem is more to do with the debt fiasco which has yet to be sorted. Cork should accept €60million at the most and attract new carriers who want to come in and I believe many do and hopefully they would stay for a long time and also more important keep what they have. Also, as well perhaps the charges are too high if they were reduced it would make a difference. I also think that Cork has a lot of potential to have a lot more flights to destinations in Europe. Destinations like FRA, DUS, BOR, LCY, ZU, Milan, STO, COPe, Vale, Brus, Ven, Os and Riga, forgot Madrid with perhaps Iberia. A good point that was made too about the marketing team at Cork Airport should be trying to start a medium to long-haul charter flight or flights to maybe some place like Orlando, Florida or maybe Toronto, Canada. It would work, perhaps one weekly flight with an Airbus A330 or Boeing 767. At least then it would give scheduled transatlantic carriers who want to some in a chance to show that it could work. Thought that Excel Airways were interested in doing Florida from Cork? Thomas Cook and Thomsonfly are two other carriers that could do long haul charter flights from Cork with an A330 or B767. Another long haul optiong could be Dubai – meant to start a few years ago but never did. A long haul charter to Orlando and Toronto would be great for Cork Airport and the South West.

I would like to know how negotiations are going with likes of Continental/Delta/American/Air Canada maybe more in starting new routes from Cork to the United States and Canada. These carriers want to come in again it all depends on the debt situation. It should be sorted shortly and I hope that Cork gets the best deal possible. €50-60millions might be alright, not €100million – no way. Perhaps Cork Airport should be sold off; at least then it would have a great chance to expand and expand properly.

Cork to Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bordeaux, Brussels, Frankfurt, Zurich, Milan would be fantastic, just what Cork needs along with the like of Delta, Continental, American, US Airways, Air Canada. I think Centralwings are in trouble too – they might be ceasing to exist if these stories are true. Could LOT Polish Airlines take over the Warsaw + Krakow flights from Cork and hopefully not Aer Lingus.

Here is my wishlist of new carriers and destinations from Cork Airport when they are finally separate from the D.A.A. it’s a fiasco this has not been sorted out.

Lufthansa – Frankfurt, Dusseldorf
SAS – Stockholm, Copenhagen
Crossair – Zurich
Iberian or Ryanair – Madrid
Air Baltic – Riga
Air France – Paris CDG, London City, Bordeaux
Brussels Airlines – Brussels
FlyBe
Ryanair – Milan or Venice
Continental, American, Delta, Air Canada, North American

Cork needs to attract more carriers to hubs with onward connections e.g. LH – Frankfurt, LX – Zurich, AF – Paris CDG, Brus Air – Brussels, maybe IB – Madrid. The more connections it has the better. Can anyone confirm that Centralwings are axing Warsaw and if so who would replace it and don’t forget Budapest. Will it be Aer Lingus or LOT Polish Airlines or could Wizz Air take them both over.

[Tom the Tenor]

Cork QNH 964 mb at 2304 hours! Wind 180 magnetic, 28 knots, Gusting 44 knots at 2308. Anyone know what Cork's lowest pressure has been down the years?

The Ryanair FR133 from Beauvais to snn diverted into Cork around 2240 hours and it looks like there may be another two Ryanairs also diverting in to us here in The Real Capital. The new covered walkways will be getting good use tonight!

Ger Cork, in strong and ideal economic circustances a number of your wish list routes may well work but there is a maked downturn now in the economy and for the time being the first thing is for Cork to hang on to what routes it has. It has been bad enough to lose Budapest, Warsaw in Wroclaw in recent weeks and months. However, there is still scope for some of the types of routes you are suggesting but maybe more so on a seasonal basis rather than year round. A seasonal route to Scandinavia would work to my mind with maybe another to an Italian destination. In the right circumstances I think that Brussels and Madrid could also be revived even if it was just seasonal on just two or three a week. Whether such routes would requalify for start up incentives on a seasonal basis would be in question?

Cork QNH at 2325 is 962 mb!

[en2r]

The Ryanair FR133 from Beauvais to snn diverted into Cork around 2240 hours and it looks like there may be another two Ryanairs also diverting in to us here in The Real Capital. The new covered walkways will be getting good use tonight!

Well flights from Paris and Birmingham to Shannon both diverted to Cork tonight. The Manchester-Shannon flight diverted to Dublin. Perhaps they weren't able to accomodate the flight at Cork with the other aircraft coming in! Makes a change to be getting diverts in instead of out!

[ryan2000]

Ger's wishlist

Ger, that wishlist is very optimistic much as I'd like to see it materialise. Most UK airports with a vastly greater catchment area wouldn't have that range of destinations.

I'm not so sure so that AF, IB,SK, AC,LH,DL and CO are waiting anxiously in their boardrooms for the squabbling between the CAA,DAA and the Fianna Fail Government to end in order to fly to the airport on the hill.

[840]

One problem with having a route operate 3 or 4 times a week as the only service from an airline is that it becomes expensive to market it. The only real exception to that would be FRA, which could generate enough bookings through travel agents for people making online connections that it wouldn't need the same promotion. People are used to going to airline websites to book now, but if they don't know an airline operates a route, they don't find out it's available.

An example of this would be a friend who was travelling to watch a Sunderland match with his son last October. They flew to Edinburgh with Aer Arann and got the train down. When I asked why he hadn't flown directly to Newcastle, it seemed it was because he didn't know Jet2 operated the route.

Personally, I'd say the three priorities for Cork in the short term need to be

• Get a 5th EI airbus based in Cork. Some routes can take extra capacity (Amsterdam and Paris in particular, maybe Manchester or Birmingham if they want to take the routes over completely) and there is the possibility of picking up Warsaw and Budapest as well as maybe reconsidering Madrid now Ryanair have dropped it from Shannon.
• Get a 2nd Ryanair aircraft based at the airport. Even if it only operates the routes to Stansted, East Midlands and Prestwick that are currently operated by non-Cork-based aircraft. It would be an important signal of committment to the Cork base.
• Get CityJet in. Here we'll be cheering for a bit of success in Shannon because if CityJet perform well there, it may encourage them to look at Cork. The importance of CityJet would be that they operate aircraft that have greater reach than Aer Arann's and don't require the same route volume as Aer Lingus or Ryanair.

Obviously any other expansion is to be welcomed too, but those seem the best practical options for driving airport growth over the next few years.

[Titan Airways]

FYI Tom the Tenor the QNH was 0950HPa at 0700 this morning.
That's definetely the lowest I've ever seen it in Cork.

[ryan2000]

EI not going back on ORK-WAW even in the wake of Centralwings withdrawing.

[en2r]

Do you know this for sure? Granted there is no space in the Summer timetable, but there will probably be space in the winter timetable unless they launch another new route.

[Dublin Airgirl]

can't see cityjet going for it, a key pull on their snn route is exclusivity, they can serve both the transit and leisure market. flying from cork to either schipol or cdg you'd have competition for the leisure part at least, so it's a much less complelling argument.
not much chance of Aer Lingus basing anything else there either. they'd need to divert capacity away from either dublin (too scared of yielding peak time slots to fr) or belfast (too scared of looking 'uncomitted' to the Northern dream), so either way would seem to be a non runner.
might get another FR plane based there once they sort out debt, unlikely t happen before it.

[en2r]

As far as I know they still have another A320 due in June that still hasn't been committed to a base so I'd say it'll go to either Dublin or Cork (I'd say theres zero chance of Belfast getting it given how poor the loads have been so far)

[N by NW]

EI Expansion at ORK

Fifth airbus should be based at ORK. Competition from Ryanair intense at DUB with EI dropping routes there e.g. Seville. Regional airports can only support one airline on any route and EI should consolidate its position in ORK as the airline with the widest European network. Ryanair unlikely to compete given its need to funnel passegers into its network at SNN.There also appears to be a shift away from year round European routes to summer only European routes and year round UK routes at SNN.

German Routes - Based on fares over past months to Berlin and Munich, these routes appear to be successful. Munich in particular is serving the ski market as it is two hours by train to the ski resorts of Austria. Other than the three days per week service to Dusseldorf from SNN, the only other routes from Germany to the South and West of Ireland are Munich and Berlin. A further route to Cologne or Dusseldorf should be explored.

Switzerland - Based on the above, a winter route to Geneva should be feasible.

Scandanavia - Copenhagen should have a chance of succeeding.

Eastern Europe/Baltic States - Budapest, Warsaw, Riga and Vilnius all available.

Summer Routes - Plenty of bucket and spade routes to operate - Palma; Ibiza; Malta; Fuerteventura; Bourgas.

[ryan2000]

EI and Cork

Of these routes I'd say Geneva is the most likely to materialise. EI were not getting the yield on WAW even before Central Wings went on the route. It is a long sector so the yield must be at a certain level. Scandanavia has been speculated about for years but never seems to attract much interest.

Aerlingus has four of the Warsaw sectors to fill next winter and should be able to fit in Geneva at 3 per week although Zurich would probably be a better business route.

Ryanair have introduced PIK,EMA and Cascarone to Cork so obviously they are not unduly worrried about diluting their SNN traffic.
I

[CCR]

Definately think Aer Lingus should give Madrid another chance..

Other routes they could try if they based a 5th aircraft would be

Las Palmas
Palma
Bordeaux
Brussels
Zurich/Geneva
Warsaw
Budapest
Riga

Of course, if their 5th aircraft at Cork is an A330, then it would have to be a daily to New York!

[840]

Even if Cork does get the June airbus, I don't know if we'd see that many new routes. Capacity increases on current routes would use up a lot of its time. Amsterdam would go to double daily for the summer programme as well, considering the loads and yields over winter at that frequency. Paris would probably go up to 10 or 11 a week. In summer, Faro, Rome and Malaga could also take extra seats.

Assuming that it doesn't come (and not getting the June one would mean no short-haul expansion in Dublin for over a year), I would guess the Warsaw flights from last winter would be filled a couple of times a week with Faro, leaving only two for other routes. Seeing that Budapest and Geneva are operated from Belfast at present, they must be possibilities.

[brian_dromey]

Hopefully GVA will be launched from ORK, would be good for winter sports, etc too.

Seems to be very popular on the easyJet network. The thing is that Switzerland has a reputation for being expensive. In my experience you wont find any bargains there and the vast majority of the goods I saw in Zurich tended to be designer and/or "aspirational" brands. So while its not "cheap" I felt it was not outrageous either.

Well worth a visit. If a place can charm on a manky wet, disgusting cold dull January day it can charm anytime!

Brian.

[RFFS]

When if ever will a ORK-LTN be reinstated, hate the trek from STN. If not why not? answers on a postcard to...

[840]

The question is who will reinstate it. Aer Lingus won't fly to Luton. Aer Arann do fly there, but won't because they know Ryanair would jump on them. Easyjet have no intention of moving back into the ROI market. That only leaves Ryanair. It's possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[ryan2000]

Ork-ltn

I agree with 840 although Ryanair do fly there from Kerry and Shannon so it's one way of expanding the Cork greater London market if they want to. It might also dilute the WW and EI yields from BHX though.

[fivejuliet]

The new SIDS/STARS were meant to come into effect today, however for some reason their entry has now been deferred

[ryan2000]

Stars and Sids

STARS and SIDS postponement difficult to explain, It was known since last year that 13th March was the date for their introduction.

Another one of Cork's last minute surprises!