Ireland's regional airports are a treat. They are small compact terminals with plenty of adjacent parking, minimal queues for check-in and security, and no distance to walk to gate and plane.
Mainly concentrated down the western seaboard from Derry to Farranfore, most are close to bay or mountain. Sligo airport has a spectacular scenic approach.
For the little they cost to build, compared to other infrastructure, and even though internal flights serving them are subsidised under a public service obligation, they can be an effective means of short-circuiting lengthy overland journeys by road or rail. They help bring vital business and tourism to the regions.
Though much larger, Shannon and Cork also enjoy high accessibility and are passenger-friendly. Under controversial legislation last year, they are no longer part of an Aer Rianta heavily dominated by the spectacular growth in traffic through Dublin airport.
While the arguments for and against the break-up were probably finely balanced, they should create some opportunities for competition between airports.
Shannon would be materially assisted by a link to the Limerick-Ennis line and future western rail corridor.
With the exception of Dublin, Ryanair mainly competes from alternative airports, Stansted and Luton instead of Heathrow, Paris-Beauvais instead of Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt-Hahn instead of Frankfurt-am-Main, and so on.
While exploiting underutilised capacity elsewhere, Ryanair's success in generating extra traffic has compounded the pressures on Dublin airport, as has more generally the rapid growth in wealth and prosperity, which has seen passenger numbers grow from five million annually to 18 million in 15 years. Dublin mostly does its best.
But the larger the airport, the more obstacles it presents to passengers.
It takes longer to find parking, and to get from there to the terminal. There are often long queues at check-in, and for passports and security, long walks down to the gate and queues again getting on to the plane. One needs to be able-bodied, with people being encouraged to carry hand-baggage.
The quality of the passenger experience is often in inverse proportion to the scale of the airport. Despite variations in the operational structures of Heathrow, JFK, Charles de Gaulle or Amsterdam, the differences, apart from age, are not great.
Many international airports have anything from two to four terminal buildings. Heathrow 1, 2, 3 and 4 do not compete with each other. The principle of division is between domestic or short-hop, European and international flights.
Alternatively, particular airlines operate from leased or designated terminals. But the Toronto public-private split failed and had to be bailed out.
Once new terminals are fully operational, it might not be easy for an airline that had an argument with the operator of Terminal A to switch to Terminal B. Terminals side by side would have to operate compatible conditions, both subject to the same regulated competition.
There is only one airport location in Dublin. Any attempt to develop Baldonnel in a major way or some other site in southwest Dublin would encounter prolonged and determined local objections, apart from start-up costs and forgoing economies of scale.
Those who live or go to live in the vicinity of Dublin airport, which has been there for decades, know the conditions. The present airport, subject only to competition from other modes of transport and more distant airports, has an effective monopoly. Changing it to a duopoly might not make much difference.
There are some obvious objections to splitting a State monopoly for the benefit of the private sector. Profits, instead of going to the Exchequer or being ploughed back into improved services, must partly go to reward the private shareholder.
The monopoly profits from the West Link toll bridge, the almost overnight fabulous multiples of wealth created with the auction of the second mobile phone licence, must surely give pause for thought. Where is the public gain, especially if a private operator would require a bigger rise in landing charges to finance a second terminal?
The knockabout advertisements of Michael O'Leary may be good publicity for Ryanair and its low-cost, anti-establishment and anti-union image. They do not do Bertie Ahern a bit of harm.
Other private interests seem to think that EU competition law and adjacent land purchases entitle them to a large slice of the strategically located asset that public enterprise has developed over decades. Is it less a question of selling the family silver than preparing the fatted calf?
There can be no objection to entrepreneurs creating wealth for themselves, where they can serve the public significantly better than even a public authority with long operational experience. But that would remain to be demonstrated in open unrestricted competition for the operating contract.
If the problems associated with airports are mainly a function of size, then tinkering around with ownership and operation on the one site, for which no clear, successful and inexpensive precedents abroad have been cited, is not going to make a decisive difference.
Of course, the extra capacity of any second terminal built in consultation with airlines should ease the situation, provided public transport access by rail or metro is put in place.
An undertow in some of the arguments is a dislike of having to work or negotiate with trade unions. Can the success of the best State companies over the decades like the ESB and till recently Aer Rianta be divorced from the dedication of their (unionised) staff?
The Irish version of the social market economy has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for progress. Efficient public service has as much a place in that model as market competition, particularly in forced situations where genuine competition may be virtually impossible.
Practicalities and the public interest need to govern decision-making, not just conflicting ideologies.