Ireland West Airport Knock
 

Hasn't been much news 2018 so starting a new thread with a few recent updates:

Link to previous IWAK thread here:
https://www.pprune.org/airlines-airp...=Knock+Airport

Is IWAK going to get a base with Ryanair first flight for June1st 2019 is direct from IWAK at 0705 am?

Phase 1 of €15m "transformation programme" completed
Lot of infrastructure investment happening this year to enhance passenger experience, cope with growing numbers and upgrade old equipment.

Terminal upgrades

• Re-branding and terminal interior makeover
• New signage and wayfinding system across airport
• New Aviation Gallery / Museum area
• Re-modelled larger immigration, arrivals, retail, catering and toilet facilities
• 250 additional surfaced car park spaces and number plate scanning entry
• New flight information digital displays and video walls throughout the airport

Visitor Discovery Centre
New "state of the art" Wild Atlantic Way tourism center is almost complete in arrivals

Infrastructure

• Covered aircraft boarding stairs
• Upgraded handling equipment, snow clearing and safety vehicles
• Fire station extension & new equipment
• Upgraded runway lighting system

Phase 2 upgrades 2019

• Re-modelling departures area
• Upgrading of Screening and ATC equipment
• Further upgrade to the airport car parks and road access

Runway Upgrade
Dep of Transport funding €8.4m (75%) to complete first overhaul of airports 30 year old runway in 2019.​

• Full resurfacing overlay and new LED ground lighting system
• ILS systems upgrade (ILS on 08 ?)

Fairly quiet on route front for Knock this year. New FR Girona and TUI Majorca services operated over Summer 2018 and FR added capacity on Milan.

Increased Winter Services

FR adding 7000 UK seats:

• STN 10x weekly
• LPL 6x weekly
• LTN 6x weekly
• EMA 4x weekly
• BRS 3x weekly
• ACE 1x weekly

BE operating Man, BHX and EDI
EI LGW no change

Sunway operating Lapland charter

------

Cologne
FR announced first German route from Knock with a 2x weekly service to Cologne for Summer 19 starting June.
Huge catchment population, could do well if promoted well. Launch media focusing on inbound potential and Wild Atlantic Way.
CGN – T – – – S –

New Ryanair service connects Cologne to Wild Atlantic Way as German visitor numbers boom

airnoc,
which route is this 0705 departure on?
Having a based airline sounds insane from the perspective of opening hours and costs.

Are there any family/economic links between the North-West and Yorkshire that make Leeds-Bradford likely to succeed?

Aside from it's previous time at Knock, it's been tried by Ryanair from Shannon, and Aer Lingus Regional and BMI Regional from Cork and none of those have been successful, so it doesn't have a great record as a route from Irish airports outside Dublin.

sawtooth

You've mixed up a bit here, Stansted is only 10x weekly. 20x weekly would entail triple daily return flights on all bar one day.

TUI seem to have dropped Palma for Summer 19

Only showing Costa Dorada on the website for next summer, surprising!

Fly be summer flights released today bhx not bookable after mid June and Edinburgh only via man in July but direct in August would be a shame if knock loses these routes

Winter sun route
 

Knock seems to be having a good year but some possible headwinds on the way if the Ryanair base closures in Spain go ahead. Knock's position without any based aircraft leaves it vulnerable to issues affecting the base airports that serve it.

Three of the four affected Spanish airports - Tenerife South, Lanzarote and Girona are destinations served from Knock. It would be quite a dent in the bucket and spade offering from the airport if all three were lost. The fourth airport, Las Palmas, is also an former Knock destination and one that they may have looked to get back if the sun routes were doing particularly well.

I suppose W routings from UK airports could work as an alternative but I'm not sure if Ryanair tend to use that option too often.

It will not be possible to service Canary routes via W patterns due to EASA FTL limitations.

Indeed, Canary Islands are too far to be served on W patterns as would only be able to be served by a single crew with no changes (a UK/Ireland to Canaries return is about getting to limits as it is).

The only other ways this possibly could work is night stopping aircraft/crew. ie a STN based crew could do STN-NOC-TFS (overnight in TFS) then do TFS-NOC-STN.

Alternatively, a DUB crew could operate DUB-TFS-NOC (then transfer back to DUB) whilst a second crew from DUB would travel to NOC and operate NOC-TFS-DUB.

EasyJet do the former a fair bit with LGW crew and the likes of Jet2/TUI will do the latter in some cases. But for Ryanair, both cases would be unlikely I'd have thought.

Unlikely Ryanair would taxi crews from Dublin to Knock and v.v. Equally, nightstops without a base would not be in keeping with Ryanair's cost base. The airport enjoyed limited opening hours, a night stoppping aircraft would mean a 06xx departure time, driving costs at the airport for extended opening hours....

Lanzarote base closure now also confirmed - certainly not good for NOC.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/201...xt-year-union/

Why? They need to keep their planes busy and they can either do that by growing the remaining bases or adding new ones. I'd say adding new ones is the prefered option if that means pocketing "marketing support", steahlty subsidies etc. One could argue that this is the at the core of Ryanair's business model and results in Ryanair moving across Europe like locusts. Whether or not Knock is the most likely choice for such a move is, of course, another question.

Part of the issue is lack of maxs, I think FR were meant to have either 30 odd or 50 odd by next Summer. On the basis you are now short of aircraft as planned, you are going to focus your remaining assets on the higher-yielding routes and bases. I'd say it's very unlikely that you would move your limited assets to an unknown yielding "base". I appreciate these routes already exist in part, but not on the same schedule you would run if aircraft were based in NOC. Remember it actually looks like there will be a reduction of aircraft in Ireland next year, certainly not an increase.

Recently I have read that it was considered alongside with Brighton airport as a place where to test a potential electric plane by a Norwegian company
It would be nice to know if they also would consider it as a manufacturing location...

NOC-ACE/TFS dropped as of 2 Jan 2020.

Apparently a new route will be announced from Knock by Lauda this week. Their bases are Dusseldorf, Stuttgart and Vienna, so presumably a service to one of those airports.

Would be good to see a new airline, albeit it's a Ryanair subsidiary.

Probably the best bet. I wonder if TUI have any fleet capacity with the MAX grounding, though.

Kinocker

Also 2 aircraft at Palma Mallorca.

*Palma loaded in booking system now.

I see cologne is loaded for June to sept next summer . I have a funny feeling that something will be worked out between ryanair and the Canary Islands airports as with the loss of Thomas cook now surely they won’t let ryanair go. They will be desperate for passengers .🤞

"Operated by Air Malta", another Ryanair subsidiary, along with with Lauda there will be a bit more colour at NOC next summer.

Malta Air, not Air Malta. Not being a smart arse, two separate entities.

Will Malta Air have a base in Cologne or will this be a W routing originating from Malta?

Probably a long shot but I wonder if this might lead at some stage to flights from Malta to Knock. I'm guessing not all Malta Air aircraft will be based on the island though.

Leeds-Bradford - My first reaction was that this never worked from Cork or Shannon with their larger catchment, but am I right in thinking there is a history of substantial emigration from the North-West to Yorkshire? Possibly strong family ties may produce a boost.

Heathrow - Almost every Irish airport, including Kerry, or even an effectively closed airport like Waterford, could support a connection to Heathrow. The problem is at the other end. If/when a new runway is built, there is likely to be serious competition for access.

Southend - Might work, but I would have thought increased frequency on one of the other London routes would be a better bet for a capacity increase.

Sun Routes - There does seem to be a bit of scope for growth here, both in terms of capacity on existing routes and some potential new ones. Fuerteventura, Dubrovnik, Verona, Nice and Lisbon could be possibilities for new routes, although too many launching could cannibalise each other. An important figure here is when people from Galway have a choice between Knock, Shannon and Dublin for existing routes, how many opt for Knock.

Inbound tourism - The place to look for inspiration here is Kerry Airport, which has pitched their tourist offering to Germans to such an extent that they overfly Dublin, Cork and Shannon into Kerry. Kerry can't even support UK routes outside London, but makes these routes to Germany work. The route to Cologne/Bonn is a start in that regard, but there's a lot more potential than that.

One other one to add to the mix is Polish routes. Cork and Shannon both support in the region of 75K-80K passengers per year to Poland and that before the route from Cork to Katowice launches. You'd have to think that Knock could support some kind of frequency to Poland.