Dublin Airport

[mackeral1234]

We are currently visiting Dublin for a short break and was wondering why Dublin airport lacks a proper public transport system ie rail service.
Yes there is good bus services however it’s time that Dublin Airport had an extension to the DART.

Which other major airport in the world doesn’t have a good railway interchange.

 

[fowler9]

We are currently visiting Dublin for a short break and was wondering why Dublin airport lacks a proper public transport system ie rail service.
Yes there is good bus services however it’s time that Dublin Airport had an extension to the DART.

Which other major airport in the world doesn’t have a good railway interchange.

Auckland, Melbourne, Santiago, Buenos Aires to think of a few I have flown from. Buenos Aires and Santiago are capital cities as well. Wellington in New Zealand also doesn't have a rail link but it isn't a major airport despite being the capital city. It would be pretty hard to build a rail link to the airport in Wellington to be fair, mind you they managed to build one to Chek Lap Kok in Hong Kong. To be fair they also built the Island the airport is on, a load of motorways and bridges including one to Macau. Ha ha.

 

[radamfi]

Which other major airport in the world doesn’t have a good railway interchange.

It depends what you call "major" and whether you count railway stations slightly away from the terminals. For example, JFK is connected to the Subway and LIRR by the AirTrain but the rail lines are some way from the airport. Unless you call the AirTrain a "rail" service.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Berlin lacks a rail link to its main airport Tegel, though it's not far by bus.
Schoenefeld (ex DDR) has a rail link, and the new airport there will have one (when/if it opens).
None at Naples (metro connection planned) or Catania (rail line passes end of runway, but no station).
Nice is another, and Venice (use bus or boat).
Istanbul's new airport hasn't got one yet, unlike the one they just closed. They are extending the Marmaray metro line from Halkali.

 

[krus_aragon]

Toronto's Pearson airport had nothing but a bus/taxi service until four years ago. They got a railway spur built, and a shuttle service started, because the Pan American Games were visiting in 2015.

 

[paddington]

Prague, Budapest, Basel, Bucharest. Not sure about airports like Malaga, Alicante etc

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Prague, Budapest, Basel, Bucharest. Not sure about airports like Malaga, Alicante etc

Bucharest has an airport station but you need a shuttle bus for the 1km distance.
Budapest has a station nearby at Ferihegy but it still needs a shuttle bus to reach.
Most people use the same shuttle bus to reach the end of the metro at Kobanya-Kispest.
The Basel airport bus will get you to the tram system fairly quickly.
Prague airport can also be reached by bus from the end of the metro, and they are planning a direct rail link into Masarykovo station.
There is currently a direct ČD bus to hlavni nadraži with through rail tickets.
Malaga has an airport station on its cercanias system.
No rail connection at Alicante, or Bilbao, or Girona. Valencia has a airport station on its metro network.
Madrid Barajas T4 has an integrated cercanias rail station from Atocha/Chamartín, but it is a long way by shuttle bus on to T1 (which has a metro station).
People are probably familiar with the setup at Stockholm Arlanda where many folk use the regular SL commuter train to Märsta and then the airport shuttle bus to reach Arlanda about 2km away.
It's much cheaper than the dedicated Arlanda Express train and the SL ticket is within the local Stockholm tariff system.

 

[WestCoast]

I think from the figures Dublin, with 31 million passengers last year, is actually the busiest airport in Europe without some sort of direct rail link and will probably remain so until Metro North is built, if it is ever built. I am excluding the new Istanbul Airport as that was not operational last year (and the previous airport had a metro), but it looks like new Istanbul will be connected by Metro as of next year. The other airport in Istanbul, Sabiha Gökçen, would be a top 20 in Europe but it's on the Asian side so doesn't count. Having been there it takes ages on the bus to get there too as it's miles out.

Other than that, the only other European top 20 airport without a rail link is actually Palma de Mallorca (29 million passengers 2018). I've been on the public bus from there into Palma, but I don't think anything rail related is planned for there? I'm guessing a lot of the tourist traffic prefers to arrive at the airport by taxi/tour operator coach/hire car directly from accommodation so the demand is not as strong as say Dublin.

 

[Shinkansenfan]

Yes there is good bus services however it’s time that Dublin Airport had an extension to the DART.

Which other major airport in the world doesn’t have a good railway interchange.

I enjoyed the doubledeck bus service from Dublin airport into the city centre. Returning to the airport from Drumcondra Station, the bus to the airport never showed up. After 2-3 scheduled bus trips did not show; I finally split a cab with another person waiting for that bus to catch my flight to Glasgow. Another airport without a rail link of some sort.

To this list we can add Boston Logan (althought there is a free Massport bus to subway station or free Silver Line BRT to South Station (from airport only it is free of charge)), New York LaGuardia (although an Automated People Mover is proposed), Washington Dulles (the Silver Line Metrorail is under construction (behind schedule)), Houston, Los Angeles (an LRT (under construction) and APM system (proposed), Montreal (rail proposed), Rio, Sao Paulo--to name just a few.

It depends what you call "major" and whether you count railway stations slightly away from the terminals. For example, JFK is connected to the Subway and LIRR by the AirTrain but the rail lines are some way from the airport. Unless you call the AirTrain a "rail" service.

With six airline terminals (originally nine), JFK is difficult to serve by a city centre rail link that could place the station platforms near each terminal or set of terminals and provide the necessary track layout. The original JFK 2000 Master Plan envisioned a new central terminal hub in the middle of the Central Terminal Area with a single railway station, with APMs radiating out like spokes on a wheel to each airline terminal. Thus, a change of vehicles would be required to reach each airline terminal.

The current AirTrain system knits the terminals together with a loop track configuration, and shifts the transfer point to the Long Island Rail Road from a hub in the CTA to Jamaica Station. This has the added advantage of also providing connections to the subway and numerous local bus routes. Another advantage is that during peak periods, the LIRR track slots are maxed out, so there is no need to reduce frequencies on other branch services to accommodate LIRR trains direct to JFK.

Is this perfect? No. But given the multiple airline terminals at JFK (soon to be three as part of the JFK redevelopment), this is a decent solution.

 

[duesselmartin]

Berlin lacks a rail link to its main airport Tegel, though it's not far by bus.
Schoenefeld (ex DDR) has a rail link, and the new airport there will have one (when/if it opens).
None at Naples (metro connection planned) or Catania (rail line passes end of runway, but no station).
Nice is another, and Venice (use bus or boat).
Istanbul's new airport hasn't got one yet, unlike the one they just closed. They are extending the Marmaray metro line from Halkali.

Nice does have a station in walking distance, St. Augustin.
Last September there seemed a lot of construction work for a tram to the airport.

Faro ist also not rail connected.

 

[Ianno87]

Used Naples Airport last month, which has no rail link (although one is under construction).