In terms of ground falling away, there's always the example of that airport (Funchal I think?) whose runway is partly on stilts over water!

I was wrong - it's Madeira and that cost 520m Euro - yikes!

Funchal is Madeira ;)

A handful -
 

Thanks for the clarification. A handful. I guess that is ten / year. Please clarify.

It is important as the magnitude of the problem seems to be one of perception that there is a problem when there is little evidence to support that view.

Don't worry about us not being vocal down here. We fight the fights we can and we save ourselves to fight for the fights worth fighting.

Shannon Heathrow will stand or fail on the availability of another operator to take up the route. The campaign organised to bring it back are reminisent of the protectionism and the lack of vision that has held that airport back from true and sustainable development. I am glad you differentiate our approach from theirs.

There certainly is a fall of land west of runway 25 and also a relatively busy road to contend with in the event of 07/25 being extended. I suspect the surface of runway 07/25 would also need strengthening to cope with heavier aircraft. This would require a major amount of work.

It's all well and good to proclaim that Cork should have CATIII, but in reality how many crews are rated for CATIII procedures? As someone has previously stated a lot of diversions in CATII conditions are caused by the airline not being CATII capable. CATIII installations are not going to solve the problem to a great extent.
Cork's runways would need major modification if CATIIIC was to be installed. The runway is too uneven with various slopes and a considerable hollow at the intersection.
As far as I'm aware the old terminal, tower and fire station are too close to 17/35 for CATIII also. While the old terminal and tower will likely be demolished, I can't see the new fire station being sacrificed. I'm open to correction on this last point though.

mmeteesside - Doh!

From the Aer Lingus thread
The schedules have already been changed on the Aer Lingus website. Cork keeps its old schedule and Belfast now gets Shannon's schedule. This is great news for Cork since the current timetable is far better for connections.

Buses
 

I've been as critical as many on here about the bus situation at Cork Airport, but we now seem to have replaced no buses with a complete farce.

I was on the inbound Amsterdam flight last Friday. The flight was delayed in Amsterdam because of a technical problem with the plane. These things happen though and nobody would want to take off in an unsafe aircraft.

The result was that we got to Cork around 22:45 or an hour and a half late. Then there was an announcement that because of the bad weather outside that we would be bussed to the terminal.

The only problem was that there was only one bus and this was busily occupied taking people from another aircraft to the terminal. 23:10 and everyone is still on the same aircraft that they've been on for nearly 4 hours at this point. Eventually, the bus arrives. It's a coach rather than a bus. Fine for Inter City bus travel, but this thing is going to have to make 3 or 4 trips to off load the entire aircraft.

Eventually, after much cajoling they decided that those passengers who were willing to walk to the terminal could be escorted instead, but why they couldn't have done this 30 minutes earlieris beyond me.

So, some notes for what is required of a bus service

• You need a bus not a coach. People are only travelling for a couple of minutes, so a seat isn't necessary. Try looking at the buses that are used in every other airport.
• Don't expect a single bus to unload an A320. Certainly don't expect a single bus to unload multiple A320s
• Have a policy in place that isn't weather dependent. If you plan to bus all passengers from remote(ish) stands you'll have the resources to bus from there when it's raining too. Once the bus is present and the driver is employed, the only extra costs involved are fuel costs and they'll be fairly negligible for such a short distance.

I've got that coach in the past for Aer Arann flights, 840. It is, of course, totally inappropriate but at least someone is trying to do something, and I wouldn't criticise them for that.

As I understand it the coach and driver are both hire-ins so to speak depending on the weather forecast for the field (!) be it a Bus Eireann or a private coach operator. I'd say it will be a cold day in hell before Cork will ever agree to both buy something like a Cobus and hire a driver of their own to motor up and down the ramp carrying pax to and from aeroplanes on the more remote stands. I seem to recall a story about a local entrepreuner offering to buy a bus (and driver?) for the ramp if the crowd at Cork would pay for it's use. Not much chance of that though?

However, at least there is some effort being made with the hired in coach and whilst not the most ideal of solutions I am not going to be overly critical of Cork on this one. Tus maith leath na h-oibre, mar a deireann siad!

There has definitely been a welcome change of strategy about corporate aircraft visitors to Cork in recent times. The crowd at Cork are even allowing some visitors to overnight! There were about five or six bizjets movements alone at Cork yesterday. A nice little earner I am sure.

Aer Arann winter timetable
 

Some changes for the winter. Cork-Edinburgh increases to twice daily every day except for Saturday when there is still no service giving a total of 12 flights per week. This route seems to be going from strength to strength, with ever increasing passenger numbers despite the fact that fares are on the high side. Also Leeds Bradford is to increase to 6 weekly, every day except for Saturday. However Southampton is dropped for the winter, surprising considering FR are axing SNN-Bournemouth at the end of the summer. Jersey, Nantes and Lorient are all also dropped for the Winter as in previous years.

Looking at the booking engine LBA does appear to have a Saturday service during winter, except for just a few Saturdays during January.

Sorry there seems to be a fault with the booking system. It only seems to show flights in one direction on a Saturday when I try dates in November. There does indeed appear to be a daily service to Leeds.

Came back from Dublin to Norwich on Tuesday and was next to a passenger who was talking to me about Norwich and said that he heard whilst in Ireland that Norwich might be getting a Cork service next summer.

didn't really think much of it till I read this thread, 3 or 4 times a week in the summer would probally do quite well! who knows what the Airline could be

Aer Lingus Winter Schedule
 

Change to EI winter schedule. Rome will now operate 4 times per week from December while Warsaw will drop to 3 flights per week. Seems strange that they're dropping the 4th Warsaw flight coming up to the important Christmas period when most flights to Poland are full with Poles returning home for the holidays. EI must obviously be suffering from intense competition from Centralwings on the route

Rumour from the hill is that EI are pulling off the WAW route for the summer of 08, however ALC will return.

EI at ORK
 

Heard that as well, opportunity for Centralwings to go daily it would seem. I presume EI will go to Munich instead of Warsaw for Summer 2008. They indicated that it would be a year round service. No chance of a 5th based 320 anytime soon from what I hear.

My understanding is that EI have no more 320s on order after the ones that are going to the Belfast base, so it's likely to be a significant wait.

Floodgates
 

Well Ryanair have eaten their words about not expanding at Cork while charges were high :cool:

So hopefully now they can get on with expanding. Especially to other destinations which would benefit from the route support scheme: Charleroi, Hahn, Bergamo or Malpensa, Wroclaw, Riga, Madrid, Palma, Valencia, Treviso, more UK.

And does anyone know how the ORK - DUB route is performing for them? I doubt it's making big profits, if any profits at all!

Problem with some of those routes is that they would probably dilute their Shannon yields and load factors but maybe they should try one or two Continental routes from Cork and see what happens.

I think the only routes you will see from ORK in the short term with Ryanair are routes that damage EI or RE and qualify for the discount scheme. Forget about continental Europe