Belfast as an air travel model for Dublin?

Here’s another shoe dropping in the SNN-LHR row.  Ryanair is putting Stansted flights from Belfast City (George Best).  4 a day.  They also want a runway expansion to facilitate additional flights from Belfast City as a new base.  As usual, every move can be spun various ways.  Aer Lingus will now claim vindication: that Ryanair is using the EGM to keep it out of Aldergrove and so lessen competition in Belfast.  Ryanair will point to the scarce Heathrow slots and say that anyway, the Irish government is on record as saying that Stansted is good enough for most people so why not keep them in Shannon where they were making money?   There’s another point that Ryanair could make which gets to the more general issue of air travel policy in the Republic.

Which is why doesn’t Dublin have 2 airports?  The building of T2 seems inevitable but it’s arguably a big mistake: building a mini-Heathrow even as government ministers trash Heathrow in their public comments on the SNN row.  Specifically, the model apparently is to pack everyone into a single airport that’s too close to the city, has too little room for expansion, and is too disruptive to local residents.  

The alternative model is two airports: one for long-haul and connections to European hubs, and one for point-to-point.   A lot of the foot traffic through Dublin Airport is point-to-point (given the frequency of those trips) so you’d free up a lot of terminal capacity by moving the point-to-point somewhere else.

Belfast is moving towards that model with Aldergrove getting long-haul and hub flights, and City getting increased point-to-point capacity (note that Ryanair’s new plan adds to their earlier announcement).  Now where might Dublin put a 2nd airport?  Baldonnel is always the suggestion.  There could be another option.  Dublin Port?