RYANAIR hopes to open a second Dublin airport at Casement Aerodrome, Baldonnel, by the end of October 1998, assuming it receives Government approval and that planning permission is granted by February 1997.
That's the timetable set down by Bovis, Ryanair's airport consultants, in their review of the project. Whether it will succeed depends crucially on the attitude of the Government and planning authorities to the scheme unveiled last summer by Ryanair's founder, Mr Tony Ryan.
Mr Ryan has met the Minister for Transport, Mr Lowry, to discuss the proposal. At that meeting, two weeks before Christmas, the Minister gave him his Department's assessment of the scheme, and Ryanair now has an opportunity to respond before Mr Lowry brings the matter to the Cabinet before the end of January.
Although the Department's assessment has not been published, it is believed to take into account Aer Rianta's opposition to the project. Dublin Airport is currently worth more than £92 million annually to the state airports company and, with air traffic likely to double over the next 10 years, Aer Rianta is understandably anxious.
Ryanair's essential argument disputed by Aer Rianta is that Dublin needs a second international airport to accommodate the anticipated growth, rather than a "costly expansion" of the existing one. It makes eminently more sense to release the existing potential of Baldonnel to create an ultra low cost terminal at no expense to the State".
Ryanair bills Baldonnel as Dublin City South Airport" and says it would be developed as a "low cost gateway to Europe". It says the £50 million project would be entirely financed by the private sector precisely who it will not say and this would represent a "significant capital saving" compared to developing Dublin Airport.
Its promotional brochure refers to Dublin Airport by its old name, Collinstown, and points out that Baldonnel served as Dublin's first civil airport from 1935 to 1940. It says it "provides a virtually ready to go site that could combine civil traffic with its existing Air Corps use", as in Frankfurt, Lyons and Belfast.
Ryanair says a new airport terminal is essential to cope with the huge increase in air travel. "Rather than add a costly additional terminal to the architectural mish mash of Dublin Airport, why not start afresh and create a much simpler terminal to anticipate less complicated customs and emigration requirements in an integrated Europe?" the brochure asks.
It describes Baldonnel as an excellent location with "a superb airfield location in open farmland, free of the risk of flooding and sea borne fog and away from dense housing". Nine miles from the city centre and adjacent to the Naas dual carriageway, it would offer direct and easy access from the southern suburbs and the embryonic City West business park.
Ryanair claims the project would lead to a strategic balanced development of the city and its air traffic facilities by offering improved access to air travel for "the most densely populated and industrialised side of Dublin". It would also, it says, reduce cross city road traffic.
The brochure makes no reference to the fact that the completion of the M50 by pass motorway by the year 2002 will make Dublin Airport easily accessible to south siders by eliminating the need to drive through the city. However, it does mention as a selling point that there would be "good connections to Collinstown via the West Link/ Western Parkway".
Nonetheless, it is clear that a new civil airport at Baldonnel would be a major traffic generator and no provision was made for this in the transport strategy for the capital devised by the Government sponsored Dublin Transportation Initiative. Neither is there any provision for a major civil airport at Baldonnel in the Co Dublin development plan.
Although questions were asked at several public presentations of the project held in Newcastle, Rathcoole, Blessington and Naas Ryanair has yet to specify whether its private sector in vestment of £50 million would cover such obvious ancillary requirements as upgrading roads, air traffic control and emergency services at the airport itself.
Mr Ryan has confined his commitment to the airport terminal which is being designed by two firms of architects, Burke Kennedy Doyle and Partners and deBlacam and Meagher as well as paying for a runway extension of some 1,200 feet. He has also emphasised the benefits to the Air Corps of having a civil partner to upgrade Baldonnel's facilities.
Officially, the Air Corps has no position on the plan it will do what the Government says. And although there are obvious attractions for the Air Corps in having Casement Aerodrome rescued from relative oblivion, it will have no use of the proposed terminal.
In terms of employment potential, Ryanair claims the project would create up to 10,000 jobs over seven years. However this figure is based on a World Tourism Council calculation that every seven additional tourists "create" one job requirement.
Aer Rianta is also sceptical about the jobs claim. "Assuming these are not just jobs transferred from Dublin Airport, we are puzzled as to how an airport for three million passengers per annum can produce 10,000 jobs," said a spokesman. "Dublin Airport, with over 50 years of development behind it, sustains just 8,000 jobs serving eight million passengers.
If it receives Government approval, Ryanair's strategy is to seize the lion's share of Dublin's growth in air traffic, from eight million in 1994 to a projected 14 million in 2007. By then, according to its brochure, Baldonnel would be handling 6.5 million passengers a year.
To get Baldonnel off the ground, Ryanair would relocate there from Dublin Airport, taking a minimum of two million passengers a year with it. But the brochure insists it would not seek exclusive use of Baldonnel a separate company would be set up to manage the new airport and its Stansted style "state of the art" passenger terminal.
A central part of Ryanair's case is that Dublin Airport is "at capacity" and that Aer Rianta had "publicly stated that it cannot accommodate future volumes unless it is allowed to build a second terminal, on the other side of the airfield, at an estimated cost of £200 million". Aer Rianta insists this claim is not true.
Aer Rianta says the Collinstown site is capable of handling at least five times its present volume, with more than enough space for a second major runway. It also says "there is no proposal whatsoever to spend £200 million in the foreseeable future", certainly not before 2005 when the current expansion programme is scheduled to be completed.
This £97 million programme is being financed by Aer Rianta from its own resources at no cost to the State. Its major component is a plan to double the area of the existing terminal and provide additional apron facilities and more car parking. Work on the terminal extension is supposed to start next year.
On completion, Aer Rianta maintains, the airport would be able to accommodate the projected throughput of 14 million passengers a year in 2007. It does concede that there is a "long term proposal" to build a second terminal on the west side of the airport, but says this would only be embarked upon to cater for future expansion.
There is a suggestion that Ryanair was driven to look at Baldonnel by the "very high" landing charges at Dublin Airport which, it claims, would be pushed even higher by Aer Rianta's investment programme.
"This would penalise air travellers through Dublin and either slow down or halt recent major progress in making low cost air travel available to Irish citizens," it argues.
This is challenged by Aer Rianta. It cites independent surveys showing that landing charges in Dublin are among the lowest in Europe (45th out of 48, according to one survey) and that these charges have not increased since 1987.
