Ryanair axe west of Ireland flights to London

[PaulM]

Originally Posted by breakingnews.ie

Ryanair today announced plans to axe current services from the west of Ireland to London.

The low fares airline will cut services between Shannon and Knock airports to Luton and Gatwick on October 31.

The news came as the airline also unveiled two new routes from Shannon to Bournemouth and Edinburgh, and more flights between Dublin and Cork and Dublin and London Gatwick.

“Ryanair’s Shannon base has performed strongly this summer and has firmly established itself as an important driver of both tourism and business in the west of Ireland,” said Ryanair’s Peter Sherrard.

“Today’s new route announcements will allow passengers from the mid-west to enjoy more low fares to even more destinations.”

Ryanair currently connects Shannon to 25 destinations, sustaining 1,700 jobs in the mid-west and delivering 1.7 million passengers per annum.

Its services between Cork and Dublin will increase to four flights a day, with the Dublin to Gatwick frequency going up to six flights a day carrying an additional 200,000 passengers per annum. The new routes and additional frequencies will also start on October 31.

“To accommodate these new routes Ryanair will drop flights from Shannon to Luton and from Knock to Gatwick,” continued Mr Sherrard. “Both Shannon and Knock will still maintain daily services to two other London airports from this date.“

It's like there is little demand in the North-west.....

[Thomas J Stamp]

How dare they? Michael O'Leary, whom I have on good authority is not from Knock, is only doing this for selfish business reasons. Dosnt he know that this will only result in the airport in knock nearly ending up closing? The people of the west have provided these ungreatful bastards with an airport and they wont fly into it. How dare they!! Next thing you know Irish Rail wont run trains on the WRC simply because no-one wants to go on them!!

The swines!!

[houstyl]

Seems to have as much to with Ryanair's turf war with Easyjet (who pulled out of Shannon-Gatwick and Knock-Gatwick recently) as anything. Now that they've been seen off Ryanair can pull the routes. From a rail perspective the interesting thing is the increase in the number of Cork-Dublin flights.... must show a good level of demand for the air service.

[Jister]

Of course if they closed the "Mikey Mouse" airports - Knock, Galway, kerry, Waterford etc. and invested the money in a good train and road system to Shannon airport, then we should be onto a winner, Shannon would have a lot more air routes and charter services which would draw more passengers and make parts of the WRC and Lk -WD line far more viable.

[colmoc]

I quite like my regional airport (kerry) thanks Jister and would prefer not to drive to shannon or cork to fly to london

I def wouldnt be using the train to get to either cork or shannon its round the world for fun kinda thing on the train unless your going to dublin.

[Jister]

Originally Posted by colmoc

I quite like my regional airport (kerry) thanks Jister and would prefer not to drive to shannon or cork to fly to london

I def wouldnt be using the train to get to either cork or shannon its round the world for fun kinda thing on the train unless your going to dublin.

But if there was a motorway to Shannon from Kerry then its probably 1.5 hours from Killarney. The point is you could have a lot more direct flights from Shannon to different destinations rather than every airport on the west coast flying to London once or twice a day.

You would have a flight from Shannon to London every hour or two and flights to a lot more places on a daily basis.

The thing about the train is you save on the car park while you are in Spain for 2 weeks.

[colmoc]

I live an hour and fifteen mins from killarney so I by the time I got to shannon I could be in dublin or london waiting for my onward flight any how.

I do appreciate your point but alot of people use kerry airport to fly home to their holiday homes for the weekend or work in london/dublin and fly home at the weekend.
they wouldnt do so if they had to fly to shannon and drive to killarney (as opposed to fly to kerry and get a taxi to Killarney)

Whats good for the nation is not always good for a locality and vice versa.
other examples are new mountjoy prison, shell pipeline, housing developments in Gaeltacht areas, lack of an immigration policy...............

[Jister]

Fair enough Kerry Airport is a good bit away but Galway Airport is ~50 miles from Shannon and Sligo Airport is just ~35 miles from Knock. Surely it makes more sense to have a very frequent service from a few airports and put the money into a road and rail network to feed them?

[Thomas J Stamp]

My mate finds that Farranfore airport is pretty handy when the Dubs are playing in Killarney. This year and last all the flights were booked out.

But for the next two years Kerry are due to play us in the league in Parnell Park. Will the flights be booked up by Kerry folks coming up? Will they fu..

[colmoc]

But for the next two years Kerry are due to play us in the league in Parnell Park. Will the flights be booked up by Kerry folks coming up? Will they fu..

No the flights won't be booked up cos sure we run dublin thomas.
We are already up here running the guards, schools, hospitals, and coppers, flannerys, the big tree, and a few other haunts

[Thomas J Stamp]

and coppers, flannerys

You know that is actually something to be ashamed of, not proud of. Never thought I'd see the day when someone would feel proud to be connected with slappers..............

[colmoc]

last time I was in coppers was 97 final I wasnt quite the required age for everywhere else

shame is loosing to cork like two weeks ago not being connected to slappers or any other seedy place

anyhow I said we ran coppers not freaquented the place its more the gresham on final day then work our way to jury's for the after match. any pub in between is in danger

[Thomas J Stamp]

[quote][anyhow I said we ran coppers not freaquented the place /QUOTE]

Yes, that's like me being proud of some Dub in Moscow running a snuff movie empire.

[Oisin88]

We are already up here running the guards, schools, hospitals, and coppers, flannerys, the big tree, and a few other haunts

But the guards are all from Mayo. The Kerrymen are all teachers and we let them think they run Dublin GAA.

You never see the Kerry people because they only travel for the final. Cute hoors! And then CIE have to put on an extra train to leave them at Connolly, and then they still have to walk down to O'Connell St. to find their way. How would they ever find their way to Parnell Park for the league????

[Thomas J Stamp]

Hey colm, 4000 tickets sold in Kerry for the replay aginst Cork. How manay sold for tomorrow?

You only sing (and attend) when you're winning. Same, of course, applies to Cork.

G on, i'm juuuust waiting for someone to say it about the Dubs. I have the stats......