Waterford Airport-Ireland

[NABLAG]

Great news for Waterford Airport. Hopefully the start of a new beginning. Waterford Airport has been without scheduled passenger services for a good number of years.

Permission given for Waterford Airport runway extension (rte.ie)

An Bord Pleanála has granted planning permission for a runway extension at Waterford Airport. (https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2022/0204/1277885-wateford-airport-extension/)

[Noxegon]

Have any airlines signalled that they'll operate from there with a bigger runway?

Cork has ten times the population and the airport there isn't doing amazingly.

[Musket90]

I don't know the area but it looks like 2 hours by road to either Cork or Dublin so maybe an opportunity for a few Ryanair flights connecting to main UK or European cities.

[Pain in the R's]

For every mile someone lives to the west of Waterford they are one mile closer to Cork and for every mile someone lives to the north of Waterford they are one mile closer to Dublin. I think airport to airport Cork is around 1 hour 45m away. No one lives south of Waterford

I find it hard to believe if an ATR operation with around 50 seats was not successful why would a 200 seat aircraft be any more successful on its historic key routes?

[EI-BUD]

For every mile someone lives to the west of Waterford they are one mile closer to Cork and for every mile someone lives to the north of Waterford they are one mile closer to Dublin. I think airport to airport Cork is around 1 hour 45m away. No one lives south of Waterford

I find it hard to believe if an ATR operation with around 50 seats was not successful why would a 200 seat aircraft be any more successful on its historic key routes?

Fair points. However, a couple of things. From an airline perspective the Luton route was well supported. When it was changed to Southend the numbers collapsed. That makes your 1st point very relevant, Dublin became a better option. The other elephant in the room is competing factors. Am airline such as Emerald if they operated WAT will always be under pressure to satisfy great demand for UK routes ex Dublin to feed the transatlantic. Then otherwise regional airlines are not plentiful in terms of bases at say London airports

From the airports perspective they'll need volume and to that end Ryanair. If they can mount a double daily London route and a few other bits no reason why there won't be demand for these services.

[EI-BUD]

Should also clarify the move of the Luton route was due to Stobart group buying Southend Airport and also owning Stobart Air ...

[LTNman]

It was obvious to everyone except Stobart that a switch was going to be bad news. When the route first moved to Southend its new terminal was not even open so passengers ended up using the old wooden terminal with no rail link. Regular uses had already abandoned the route by the time the new terminal opened.

It might seem strange but I caught a train to Southend once with the intention of catching a bus to the old terminal, as I had a rover ticket. I never got there so I went home. I think maybe a taxi was the only practical solution but not ideal for passengers.

[Expressflight]

It was obvious to everyone except Stobart that a switch was going to be bad news. When the route first moved to Southend its new terminal was not even open so passengers ended up using the old wooden terminal with no rail link. Regular uses had already abandoned the route by the time the new terminal opened.

It might seem strange but I caught a train to Southend once with the intention of catching a bus to the old terminal, as I had a rover ticket. I never got there so I went home. I think maybe a taxi was the only practical solution but not ideal for passengers.

Unusually for you, there are inaccuracies in your post.

The old SEN terminal was certainly not the 'old shed' that you seek to describe and inbound pax from WAT would have felt quite at home as it was quite similar to theirs. There was no on-site rail link but buses were waiting in front of the terminal for every WAT flight to make the 5 minute journey to Rochford Station for Liverpool Street.

You really "went home" just because you couldn't find the No.7 or 8 bus stop to take the every 15 minute service to the SEN stop 150 yards from the terminal? You don't mention the year and there was a long period when the dedicated station-to-airport bus ceased to operate so it must have been in that period.

[840]

For every mile someone lives to the west of Waterford they are one mile closer to Cork and for every mile someone lives to the north of Waterford they are one mile closer to Dublin. I think airport to airport Cork is around 1 hour 45m away. No one lives south of Waterford

This is a big point, especially for those coming from the north or east, where you have to get the whole way round Waterford City. A quick look at travel times shows Kilkenny only 35 mins further from Dublin and Wexford 40 mins further. What this means in essence is that the market is Co Waterford, with a population of 120K, and with that for anywhere west of Dungarvan, Cork is more attractive. At least when competing with Cork, the relatively silly situation of the airport there helps somewhat.

I guess though with Waterford that the terrain in any direction other than south made more market-friendly locations unsuitable.

I'm also very skeptical €12m to build 850m of new runway, which is about the cost per km of a single-carriageway national road (for UK -based people think A road with double-digit numbering). For reference, the other big runway projects in Ireland have been
- Dublin parallel runway €320m for a 3,330m runway
- Cork runway rebuild (so not as many costs as a new construction) €40m for 2,133m

It seems like a project that will either go way over budget or deliver a sub-standard product.

[LTNman]

Expressflight. I never said Southend’s terminal was an old shed. I drove there once, as I was passing, and found the building to be delightful and occupied just by spotters. Just very old fashioned, like Blackpool’s wooden terminal and as modern as Lydd.

It is a fact though that a successful Waterford London service was destroyed by Stobart, as it was moved too early or maybe it should never have been moved.

As for my train trip, yes I did turn around, as a couldn’t find a public transport option to the airport. I ended up at Southampton Airport, as it was a go anywhere ticket.

[Expressflight]

LTNman

I can't imagine why I didn't realise you meant the old terminal was just old fashioned; must have been something within "old wooden terminal" I guess.

While I totally agree with you that the pax numbers on WAT-SEN fell off a cliff compared with WAT-LTN I've never really been able to work out why there was such a decline. Same carrier and, presumably, same schedule and fares. Flight time slightly more but there must be something else, after all it was still a coach from both UK airports to the train station (5 minutes from SEN) and train times Rochford to Liverpool Street 50 minutes, 3 x hourly. Perhaps it was a UK catchment area problem. So what happened to all the lost traffic; would most of them really prefer to depart from DUB to LON? I've often pondered that mystery.

I was on the inaugural SEN departure and returned 5 days later. Many of the WAT-SEN pax seemed unsure how to get to London after arrival and one asked me how far the nearest Tube line was. Maybe the pre-launch marketing was poor.

[LTNman]

I thought it felt like a terminal from a bygone age. For me that was its appeal. For passengers used to the ugliness of Luton’s terminal it would have come as a shock, as it was like traveling back to the 60’s. Luton had TV set departure boards that were full of flights, tannoy announcements and even in those days a few shops. Southend was all quaint, cosy and quiet apart from airband radios and yes I remember the Aer Arann check in desks so I was there after the route swap.

Maybe Waterford passengers were just expecting more from a London Airport. Of course we have to remember location, location, location. For most Waterford passengers Southend was not close to their final destinations and most passengers don’t want to go to London by train.

[runawayedge]

The reasons are many. LTNman you are correct, passengers did not take to SEN at all, there were problems with the busses to Rochford, and very often issues with the rail connection, with frequent works particularly at weekends, not to mention the regular squabbling among the natives. The terminal did have an impact as there were few facilities for departing passengers, which irked day return business traffic. Lest not forget that at the peak LTNWAT and LTNGWY had up to three AR72s daily and healthy load factors. Yes, you had to take a train and a bus on arrival at LTN, but it was seamless and frequent. At SEN the morning and evening flights arrived off peak for train connections and a 30/40 minute wait was not unusual.

The routing around the London TMA added 20 minutes flight time and in strong winds it was not unusual for the return GWY leg to take two hours. Direct routing ex LTN particularly on the evening sectors was the norm. Reliability was also an issue due fog at SEN. The high demand (up to 40% of total volume) for LTN was driven by a large ethnic Irish population in North London/Luton and Bedfordshire for whom SEN made no sense. Lastly, up to 10% of the traffic connected onwards out of LTN.

It was interesting to see how quickly two successful routes died. It was the perfect storm, higher costs, lower demand, lower yield.

I have no doubt there remains more than sufficient demand for a daily jet service WAT-LTN.

[Buster the Bear]

LTNman

I can't imagine why I didn't realise you meant the old terminal was just old fashioned; must have been something within "old wooden terminal" I guess.

While I totally agree with you that the pax numbers on WAT-SEN fell off a cliff compared with WAT-LTN I've never really been able to work out why there was such a decline. Same carrier and, presumably, same schedule and fares. Flight time slightly more but there must be something else, after all it was still a coach from both UK airports to the train station (5 minutes from SEN) and train times Rochford to Liverpool Street 50 minutes, 3 x hourly. Perhaps it was a UK catchment area problem. So what happened to all the lost traffic; would most of them really prefer to depart from DUB to LON? I've often pondered that mystery.

I was on the inaugural SEN departure and returned 5 days later. Many of the WAT-SEN pax seemed unsure how to get to London after arrival and one asked me how far the nearest Tube line was. Maybe the pre-launch marketing was poor.

Huge Irish community in north London and of course in and around the Luton area.

[Buster the Bear]

Huge Irish community in north London and of course in and around Luton. Probably then easier to fly to Dublin and get to Waterford by land based options?

[LTNman]

So is the terminal at Waterford open to visitors like Lydd and Swansea still is or is it another Manston where the terminal was shut but the airport remained open until the airport was closed?

[AirportPlanner1]

It’s all water under the bridge now and was argued to death at the time. It’s simplistic to say SEN killed the route off. Yes there was a drop in pax initially but I recall numbers improving somewhat when the route ended and believed the decision may have been premature.

What I do recall vividly was that the route had in any case been declining prior to it moving from LTN. It has to be remembered it was around the peak of the aftermath of the financial crash/credit crunch and Ireland was particularly badly hit.