Waterford-2

[NLC1072]

There are stirrings again at Waterford airport;

Aer Southeast will begin flights this year!

Aer Southeast is now a part of a company which has its own Airline Operating License, AOC.
It's been a long road, but a lot of work has been done behind the scenes in order to secure the operation.
Due to circumstances out of our control, which included a long period of time when Waterford airport was in deep discussions with another operator, meant that we were not in a position to progress on this matter.
However, those things have been resolved, and Aer Southeast has now picked up were it left off.
More info follows in the coming days.

The ASE team.

As lifted from their Facebook page

facebook.com/AerSoutheastIRL/

I wonder who the AOC is?

[Harry Wayfarers]

And who were Waterford talking to, VLM or Eastern?

[The 5Q]

Looks like Are Southeast and Backbone Aviation are one and the same both rising from the ashes with in hours of each other, and same personnel listed for both.

I would not hold me breath on this happening ....once bitten, twice shy

[01475]

Some recommendation right there; we set up for the specific purpose, but the airport wanted to talk to anyone but us. Oh.

Can't see how this can work unless they can borrow branding, reputation and marketing from FlyBe, Aer Lingus or suchlike.

[Harry Wayfarers]

"We are part of a company which has it's own AOC" ...

How amateurish is that, either the AOC holder has bought them out or they are piggy-backing off someone else's AOC for a fee, how can they be "part" of a company? ... I would say a bunch of amateurs but previously I only heard of one name, one individual, behind this project.

[Jetscream 32]

Looks like Are Southeast and Backbone Aviation are one and the same both rising from the ashes within hours of each other, and same personnel listed for both.

I would not hold my breath on this happening ....once bitten, twice shy

Someone is talking :mad: :=
Backbone AOC DK072 was cancelled by the Danish CAA on the 17th January when the company declared bankruptcy!!

Nothing is happening with that AOC that's for sure!

[The 5Q]

They are still quoting it on their website - which has been "updated" .....

http://www.backboneaviation.dk

[NLC1072]

Does anybody know what the finding were in the most recent report regarding the new runway extension plans?

[78Whiskey]

Looks like there might be some news coming out of Waterford soon.

Hopefully good news anyway! :)

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/decision-imminent-on-waterford-airport-916389.html

[78Whiskey]

Minister for Transport Shane Ross has signed off on a Government memo that paves the way for €5 million in exchequer funding to extend Waterford (https://www.waterfordlive.ie/) Airport’s runway.

The runway extension will cost €12 million in total, with the remaining €7 million to be provided by private investors and local authorities in the region.

Minister of State John Halligan says it’s “excellent news” for Waterford Airport. “Cabinet approval is required to sanction the €5 million from Government and, prior to this, a memorandum must be circulated by Minister Ross to all other departments inviting them to make observations,” he says.


https://www.waterfordlive.ie/news/home/380444/exciting-times-as-waterford-airport-runway-extension-moves-a-step-closer.html

Extension will bring it up to 2250*45m, if given the final go ahead. Should be finalised within 1-2 weeks.

[LTNman]

An awful lot of money being spent. What do they hope to achieve, a daily return to Luton using a Ryanair 737? Money wasted comes to mind. A scaled down version of what happened in Spain a few years ago.

[southside bobby]

Or if any `inducements` available perhaps Messrs STK/BEE to SEN.

[SWBKCB]

An awful lot of money being spent. What do they hope to achieve, a daily return to Luton using a Ryanair 737? Money wasted comes to mind. A scaled down version of what happened in Spain a few years ago.

Less than was spent on re-doing the runway at Carlisle! :ok:

[LTNman]

Or if any `inducements` available perhaps Messrs STK/BEE to SEN.

Don't need a 2250m runway for that. This is all about what can't use Waterford now that will use Waterford in the future. Got to be honest I can't think of anything. Maybe a random IT to Palma?

ILS CAT 1 maybe at one end?

[Blakedean]

Don't need a 2250m runway for that. This is all about what can't use Waterford now that will use Waterford in the future. Got to be honest I can't think of anything. Maybe a random IT to Palma?

ILS CAT 1 maybe at one end?
Norwegian to NY, just to spite ORK.......;-)

[SealinkBF]

Loganair to Southend?

[Shamrogue]

The runway might appear a potential white elephant. Given the not so vast amount of money being invested in an infrastructural item , the upsides are many. New employment in the airport, a potential spin off for companies who may have "runway challenged" aircraft, etc.
As always ease of access. A once per day Easy air or Ryan Jet to the London area would certainly help. It all adds to the fabric of the region. Dublin, Limerick and to a lesser extent Cork are all gaining new jobs whilst the South East is effectively forgotten. So ease of connectivity to other centres of commerce will certainly be helpful...........and it might just assist the South East in being a bit less "out of sight, out of mind" with the power brokers.

Cheers
Shamrogue

[EGPO]

Is it true that Sligo airport, is still getting subsidies to maintain its infrastructure , despite not seeing flights for a few years .
I would have thought, that Sligo being relatively close to the border , they might have tried to convince an airline to operate .
But knowing it's been pretty much there , unused , so what is the logic behind Waterford?. Does it really stand a chance , when most Irish folk are doing what UK citizens did with the opening of the motorways , and simply drive a couple of Hours to Dublin .

That said they must be confident of capturing a larger carrier , Dublin always seems to be bursting at the seams .
So would Waterford be a good Cargo airport ? . Also what destinations are they hoping to serve ? I could see perhaps London , Manchester , Edinburgh and maybe a summer route to the usual Malaga and Alicante . But those cam be served easily by ' Ejets ' is not the current runway able to support smaller Jetliners ?.

[EI-BUD]

This is definitely a Ryanair Stansted or Luton route.
They fly to every airport in the Republic of Ireland that is able to accept a 738... plus of course there historical link.

[Shamrogue]

Given the relative population of the Southeast.

Some time ago, there was an interesting submission in Wisconsin as follows :
https://wisconsindot.gov/Documents/projects/multimodal/air/lse-eis.pdf

I suspect Edinburgh would be a flight of fancy. Getting 50 people all from the South East, all wanting to go to Edinburgh on a particular day.........and do so over a longer period. I don't see this. High population density routes with economic ties to the Southeast. So London is the most obvious. And after that maybe a Birmingham and Manchester. There is perhaps an arguement for a Ryanair or Aer Lingus jet service to Malaga or Faro during the summer season.

Freight - now that is an interesting one. How does freight work? Is there enough coming out of or heading into the Southeast?

Cheers.
Shamrogue

[EGPO]

Given the relative population of the Southeast.

Some time ago, there was an interesting submission in Wisconsin as follows :
https://wisconsindot.gov/Documents/projects/multimodal/air/lse-eis.pdf

I suspect Edinburgh would be a flight of fancy. Getting 50 people all from the South East, all wanting to go to Edinburgh on a particular day.........and do so over a longer period. I don't see this. High population density routes with economic ties to the Southeast. So London is the most obvious. And after that maybe a Birmingham and Manchester. There is perhaps an arguement for a Ryanair or Aer Lingus jet service to Malaga or Faro during the summer season.

Freight - now that is an interesting one. How does freight work? Is there enough coming out of or heading into the Southeast?

Cheers.
Shamrogue

Well I guess , ( although aircraft are bad for the environment) but IF you could land a large say 767 freighter on this new runway , and fly it to say Leige.

That is a heck of a lot of lorries , not on the ferry , and ultimately clogging up the relatively rural roads on either side of the ferry route .
I'm not familiar with the southeast , but I thought Waterford was connected to Dublin , by the Motorway network.

Perhaps there might be Scope for Internal flights , perhaps seasonal , to Kerry and Knock( one off charters for the various religious events ) , for passengers ( tourists) arriving from South Wales , or even Donegal , ( the ' Wild Atlantic Way'' ) is stunning but from Waterford the rest of the nation is a very long drive .

As people have said a link to London on Ryanair seems likely , and ' Bucket and Spade routes', it's beyond unlikely they'd secure a Dublin link , so would Amsterdam be a possible , to give accsess to a ' Hub' .

As any London link won't be to the Big two London Airports .
More likely Southend .
Unless they did Manchester .

Are there any big business interests in the Southeast , that would make use of an Amsterdam link ?.

Apologies for the questions , but I'm not familiar with the geography of the far Southeast , and what if any industry is around there , to generate ' bums on seats '.

[LTNman]

More likely Southend .
.

History has shown if you want to kill off a London route you move it to Southend.

[Buster the Bear]

History has shown if you want to kill off a London route you move it to Southend.

Indeed. Suckling, BA, Celtic Airways and finally Aer Arran and VLM found the route to be very lucrative from Luton. Stobart thought differently!

[SWBKCB]

Well I guess , ( although aircraft are bad for the environment) but IF you could land a large say 767 freighter on this new runway , and fly it to say Leige.

That is a heck of a lot of lorries , not on the ferry , and ultimately clogging up the relatively rural roads on either side of the ferry route .

Is it? What's the 'lorry equivalen't of a 767? What's the price difference of transporting a lorry load by air rather than by truck?

[confused atco]

Well I guess , ( although aircraft are bad for the environment) but IF you could land a large say 767 freighter on this new runway , and fly it to say Leige.
.
Just curious as to what you will put on board?
Perhaps there might be Scope for Internal flights , perhaps seasonal , to Kerry and Knock( one off charters for the various religious events ) ,

No demand.
Cork/Shannon/Knock to Dublin internal flight stopped years ago.
Kerry/Donegal to Dublin have to be subsidised.

There are elections on the 24th so all the stops are been pulled out.

There population simply is not there to support the airport.

[840]

The location to the south of Waterford isn't ideal either if it aims to be an airport for the South-East. From Carlow or Gorey, you'd be in Dublin as quickly. From Cahir, you'd be in Cork as quickly. If the same mistake hadn't been made in Cork with the airport located north/east of the city, it would have an even smaller catchment again.

[NLC1072]

Well, the runway extension has been granted, 12 million euros has been put to one side for the extension which will bring the runway to 2250*45m.



From looking at the investors it includes Conor McCarthy (Leadmore Investment Company) who own Dublin AeroSpace, it looks like Waterford will be a new aircraft maintenance site.

Sorry I can't post links here yet but google will bring you to those articles.

[EGPO]

Well, the runway extension has been granted, 12 million euros has been put to one side for the extension which will bring the runway to 2250*45m.



From looking at the investors it includes Conor McCarthy (Leadmore Investment Company) who own Dublin AeroSpace, it looks like Waterford will be a new aircraft maintenance site.

Sorry I can't post links here yet but google will bring you to those articles.


With 7831ft x145 that's big enough for the likes of Ryanair, and Aerlingus to operate .
Question is,
Is there demand for large aircraft down there ?.
I had wondered about ' incoming ' EU Tourist flights, one of the English south coast Airports sees a few inbound German flights .

So could this be a ' Tourist Airport'?.
And is the Terminal getting upgraded to match such a good sized Runway ? .

[speedrestriction]

Anything over 2000m or so is enough to reach the Canaries in a 737 or an A320.

[840]

Of all airports in Ireland, Kerry is best placed to prosper from routes sustained through inbound tourism. And yet it has only a couple of seasonal routes to Frankfurt-Hahn and Berlin. I'd caution against relying on inbound tourism to sustain the airport.

More realistic is summer seasonal sun routes, maybe a Canaries flight in the Winter and the prospect of attracting an airline like Ryanair for a London route once the runway can handle their aircraft.

[EI-BUD]

With 7831ft x145 that's big enough for the likes of Ryanair, and Aerlingus to operate .
Question is,
Is there demand for large aircraft down there ?.
I had wondered about ' incoming ' EU Tourist flights, one of the English south coast Airports sees a few inbound German flights .

So could this be a ' Tourist Airport'?.
And is the Terminal getting upgraded to match such a good sized Runway ? .
EGPO,
The level of demand will not get the airport to significant enough demand to deliver a viable level of pax. An airport needs in excess of 1million pax a year, given an appropriate level of revenue from car parks and retail too. Any airports with less than this make up the shortfall from government subsidies or loose money.

​​​​​​Shane Ross said on the radio yesterday that the airport repay the government in 4 years ... but how I earth will they do this?

The airport will probably attract Europe's biggest low cost airline, and with a, fair wind I think they could get a 2 daily London route, Luton/Stansted, maybe twice weekly to MAN and BHX and a handful of seasonal sun routes, which would probably be AGP, FAO, ACE, ALC of the like. With said airline in place the likelihood of other airlines coming in are low.

They certainly could draw traffic from the the area between Waterford and Dublin, those who don't want M50 and a congested airport experience, but certainly not enough to deliver the necessary numbers...

EI-BUD.
​​​

[Cyrano]

​​​​​​Shane Ross said on the radio yesterday that the airport repay the government in 4 years ... but how I earth will they do this?
​​​

My understanding is that the promised government funding is a grant rather than a loan. This idea that it will be "repaid" rests on a house of cards of (to say the least) shaky assumptions:

Scheduled passenger flights will start, and the airport will operate at no cost to the state (i.e. the airport will become virtually the only one of its size in the world (and certainly the only one with Ryanair as a main carrier) to be able to break even)
These passenger flights will bring new tourists to the Southeast most of whom would not have travelled otherwise, i.e. they wouldn't have used other airports such as Dublin or Cork (in other words, this will be mostly incremental demand rather than just displacement)
These new (incremental) tourists will spend money in the Southeast on accommodation and food and car hire, which in turn will generate VAT, and perhaps create a few extra jobs in the hospitality sector in the region which will generate PRSI receipts for the State
The passenger flights will of course also carry Irish people to the UK/Spain etc to spend money there rather than at home (meaning a loss of VAT/PRSI revenue in Ireland) but for the numbers to work we have to magically assume that most of these Irish people would have travelled anyway (via Cork/Dublin). In other words, the inbound demand (= extra VAT revenue) will be additional, but the outbound demand (= loss of VAT revenue) will only be displacement
If you are prepared to assume all of that, you may be able to make a case that there is a net annual gain of €1.25m to the State in terms of additional VAT and PRSI receipts (giving a 4-year "repayment") - but if you are prepared to assume all that, I can forward you the e-mail addresses of some Nigerian princes who would like to make you rich.

If there is a case for improved flight connectivity in the Southeast, it would surely have been better to put some funding towards subsidising a PSO flight to London with ATRs or Q400s or Embraers, to at least prove the market for a couple of years using the existing infrastructure, rather than putting the money into a runway extension which will simply leave the airport in need of continuing annual subsidy to stay open?

[racedo]

My understanding is that the promised government funding is a grant rather than a loan. This idea that it will be "repaid" rests on a house of cards of (to say the least) shaky assumptions:

Scheduled passenger flights will start, and the airport will operate at no cost to the state (i.e. the airport will become virtually the only one of its size in the world (and certainly the only one with Ryanair as a main carrier) to be able to break even)
These passenger flights will bring new tourists to the Southeast most of whom would not have travelled otherwise, i.e. they wouldn't have used other airports such as Dublin or Cork (in other words, this will be mostly incremental demand rather than just displacement)
These new (incremental) tourists will spend money in the Southeast on accommodation and food and car hire, which in turn will generate VAT, and perhaps create a few extra jobs in the hospitality sector in the region which will generate PRSI receipts for the State
The passenger flights will of course also carry Irish people to the UK/Spain etc to spend money there rather than at home (meaning a loss of VAT/PRSI revenue in Ireland) but for the numbers to work we have to magically assume that most of these Irish people would have travelled anyway (via Cork/Dublin). In other words, the inbound demand (= extra VAT revenue) will be additional, but the outbound demand (= loss of VAT revenue) will only be displacement

If you are prepared to assume all of that, you may be able to make a case that there is a net annual gain of €1.25m to the State in terms of additional VAT and PRSI receipts (giving a 4-year "repayment") - but if you are prepared to assume all that, I can forward you the e-mail addresses of some Nigerian princes who would like to make you rich.

If there is a case for improved flight connectivity in the Southeast, it would surely have been better to put some funding towards subsidising a PSO flight to London with ATRs or Q400s or Embraers, to at least prove the market for a couple of years using the existing infrastructure, rather than putting the money into a runway extension which will simply leave the airport in need of continuing annual subsidy to stay open?

Pork Barrel funding at its finest in an unviable airport.