Cork's Evening Echo has an extensive report on a meeting of the South West Regional Authority attended by Airport Director Pat Keohane. The report makes for fairly grim Reading with no sign of a pick up in traffic.

It appears that many airlines do not wish to even discuss new routes into Cork due to the possibility of having to go head to head with Ryanair. Tomorrow Evening Echo is said to feature an article outlining the chances of Cork getting a transatlantic service. I would say slim and none as long as it's owned by the DAA.

It seems illogical to have 3 airlines operating to New York from Shannon and none from Cork. If all three are profitable then Cork should be able to support one airline.

Of course there are complicating factors, some political some historical and others just plain nonsensical.

Don't blame them. What have Ryanair done for Cork over the last few years. Start many sun routes that are already operated by other carriers. Milan BGY is the only route FR have done that is of benefit to Cork and the region.

As SNN has USPC there is not much chance a US carrier would pick Cork.

Even Dublin struggles with the Ryanair effect. The only real alternative services offered beyond Ryanair and Aer Lingus are either major carriers along the lines of Lufthansa and Air France or routes that are too long to interest them - Long Haul, Istanbul etc.

I certainly can't see the latter showing interest in Cork and the former is very unlikely.

If any other airline were to come in, they'd probably have to do it in a big way, by basing an aircraft and offering several routes. A single route is too easy to pick off.

I always felt that was a mistake Easyjet made. If they'd offered Edinburgh, Glasgow, Barcelona, Milan etc instead of just Gatwick, Ryanair might have had more reticence about the amount of cash that would have had to be burned to counter them.

Pre Clearance is undoubtedly an advantage but many people who route through LHR say that subsequent delays at JFK are minimal. There are many US companies with a significant presence in the Cork Region. Most of their executives route to Cork through LHR. I suspect many of them would use a direct service if it were available.

If that's the case, the marketing department might want to work a bit more closely with those companies.

I know of one BA transatlantic route that is only kept viable because a third of the seats sold on it go to one individual company.

While that isn't going to happen in Cork, getting Apple, EMC/VMWare, Pfizer etc on board while talking to airlines would help immensely. And it's in those companies interests too.

840, time doesn't work any differently at Shannon, you know! 20 minutes from it you're also at Gort/Ennis/Burren. I dont think 20 minutes is a good time to specifiy- an hour would be far more suitable. The age old presumption "Shannon only serves Limerick City" gets my gander up :ugh:

Any update on the article? Probably never happen under DAA but ORK could work with NOC who say they are still discussing TA options with carriers. Lots of US medical devices companies in the Mayo/Galway area as well as the tourism and family links.

ORK-NOC-JFK wouldn't be a bad routing with runway advantage from NOC on the outbound.

Problem is that no airline with operations at SNN is going to take a gamble on ORK while they serve SNN. There are significant costs associated with opening a new route and any route at ORK would likely impact SNN to some degree. I dont see DL or CO/UA taking the risk on routes that they have been maturing over the years.
EI wont operate the A330 into ORK, so thats a non-starter too. Only hope would be an ORK-based start-up, which is also fairly unlikely.

Evening Echo report says that Cork have spoken to EI and CO but that's as far as it goes. Apparantly the length of the Runway is not an issue though no mention is made of Aerlingus' hang up about turning an A330 at the 35 end. In summary it says that a transatlantic service is at best 3 to 5 years away.

This is the time frame that has constantly been used whenever the question has been asked down through the years.

Cork traffic up 2% for July so maybe the corner has been turned although with the Government planning another harsh budget for 2012, one can never be too sure. Traffic for the year to date remains below 2011 levels so it remains to be seen if airlines will benefit from the DAA's incentive scheme which will only come into play if the annual total exceeds last years figure.

On a related topic Ryanair's Winter Liverpool Cork flights remain unbookable for the Winter with less than 12 weeks to go.

Dublin Airport will only benefit from the DAA incentive scheme this year. If Cork traffic below 2010 figures then can't see it rise much between now and end of year. Shannon the same but there has being some growth over the last few months (after FR reduction). So Cork and Shannon wont benefit until next year at the earlist.

Cork - Liverpool should be bookable soon.

I cant help but remember the number of airlines that have been at Cork over the years. Many have been chased off routes by bad times, or either FR or EI have taken exception to the unwelcome competition. The likes of BA, BMI, CSA, Malev, easyJet, etc. It seems like there was a lot more variety on the ramp a decade ago, of course less flights and destinations too.

While I woiuld love to see a TA from Cork, the reality is that in another few years it will only take about an hour at most to drive between Cork and Shannon.The tunnel across the Shannon has already knocked 15-20 minutes off the journey, so really it does not make economic sense to have another TA service only 70 miles distance.

Possibly for a carrier already flying into Shannon but there is nothing stopping a new entrant flying into Cork in the coming years or an existing carrier switching it's base if their Shannon numbers are not working out.

I take the point about the motorway but if the same logic applies in reverse, why not insist that all Uk and European flights leave from Cork. It would provide critical mass for airlines and allow them to open new routes. I'm saying that with Tongue in cheek. Logically Cork should be able to support at least one transatlantic service if Shannon in the open skies age can support 4.

The runway is not a barrier although I accept that the Cork brand name is probably not known in the US. Maybe calling it Blarney Stone Airport might help!

I suspect the pre-clearance in Shannon is a bigger obstacle than the runway. It's a powerful disincentive against an existing airline moving operations to Cork.

Best hope would seem to come from a US-based airline that doesn't fly into Shannon, so we may be looking for an airline that doesn't even fly transatlantic yet.

Is there any update on the new route from Cork this winter. BUD or PRG were said?

Most high yield US business executives travelling to Cork fly via LHR and simply refuse to be brow beaten into using Shannon. Aerlingus in particular have spent years trying to woo them with free limos etc but to no avail.

The full motorway planned for the end of the decade should reduce the journey time to around 1 hr 15 mins but remember that works both ways.

Q3/Q4 2011 - 2012 Outlook
 

Ryanair Flights to Liverpool Now Bookable Double Daily Fridays, Sundays with Daily Return service on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays.

I think Q3 will see passenger numbers generally inline with Q3 2010, for Q4 i think there will be increases if only slight as EI will be offering extra flights (7 extra per week est), FR will be offering extra flights (3 extra per week), W6 will be offering extra flights (4 extra per week), the loss of Air Southwest wont reflect any difference in passenger numbers with these extra flights taken into account and i think the flights where pulled in Jan 11 until Mar 11 anyway.

So Looking at 2012 i've heard many rumours but i think the facts are increased EI flights (extra capacity following disposal of SNN-CDG) which could maybe see SXF return? (Long Shot!) or just the rest of their sun schedule increased paticularly PMI which had great loads but had a bad schedule. FR who knows they've fell out with the new Gov so anything could happen there, looks like the MoT dont see any reasonable plans for inbound growth. W6 were intrested in Prague but i think its been differed until 2012, so maybe March for a start date. I've heard rumours of BUD and VIE but i think they wont be back until were back in the black. 2012 should be promissing as i think the figure floating around (Ryanair) of 2.1m for 2011 is wrong, think either 2.2/2.3m is the expected figure. So hopefully it should be the end of the seriously bad declines since late 2008, but anything is possible this exact time last year we thought Summer 2011 looked promising, we where bailed out inbetween so fingers crossed we will get through Winter 2011/2012 on positives. It's also a shame now that there's less then a month until the 2nd FR aircraft is due to be mothballed.

Does that take into account the 2 weekly to FAO which is dropped.