Aer Lingus - 6
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EI narrowbodies across the Atlantic?
Flightglobal reports an interesting interview with Stephen Kavanagh, EI CCO, following on from today's EI results announcement.
To summarise:
To summarise:
- Aer Lingus is "very keen to see" whether the Airbus A321neo or Boeing 737-9 Max will offer the range needed for some of its transatlantic services.
- If so, the carrier could order up to five re-engined narrowbodies to serve the USA's east coast as part of a larger short-haul fleet renewal programme.
- [Kavanagh] said the carrier is looking at the Neo and Max families. If the aircraft do offer sufficient range, Aer Lingus could order "up to five" re-engined narrowbodies for this mission, to complement the widebody services. This would not affect Aer Lingus's existing order for nine Airbus A350s.
- Aer Lingus's evaluation of the Neo and Max families is also focused on eventually replacing its short-haul fleet of 36 A320s, said Kavanagh.
- They expect to complete evaluations and start manufacturer negotiations within 12 months.
Join Date: Mar 2005
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It certainly makes sense for Aer Lingus.
Narrowbodies make sense for a number of routes ex-Dublin and would be of huge advantage to Shannon services or if they were ever to launch trnsatlantic from Cork. It makes particular sense in the last case as they can still keep a uniform fleet in Cork.
A cynic might suggest that Aer Lingus already know the answer to the question, that one works and one doesn't and that they will use this to drive down the cost of the one that doesn't.
Narrowbodies make sense for a number of routes ex-Dublin and would be of huge advantage to Shannon services or if they were ever to launch trnsatlantic from Cork. It makes particular sense in the last case as they can still keep a uniform fleet in Cork.
A cynic might suggest that Aer Lingus already know the answer to the question, that one works and one doesn't and that they will use this to drive down the cost of the one that doesn't.
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EI CEO says A350 will most lightly not enter service in 2015 because of further delays with Airbus. The first was scheduled for 2014 and then pushed back to early 2015. Talks about a new delivery schedule to take place soon.
Why get 9 A350 when you want the A321NEO on JFK and BOSl. 9 seems way to much 4 is more ideal.
Long Haul business class is becoming to small which is why an announcement about increased long-haul premium capacity.will be made soon.
Why get 9 A350 when you want the A321NEO on JFK and BOSl. 9 seems way to much 4 is more ideal.
Long Haul business class is becoming to small which is why an announcement about increased long-haul premium capacity.will be made soon.
Join Date: Aug 2000
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What about using Cork - Heathrow - U.S or Cork - Amsterdam - U.S?
Why would you want to use Dublin or snn when you can begin your journey from your own airport? It beats me to be supporting other competitor airports but that's just my opinion.
Either way, have a good holiday.
Why would you want to use Dublin or snn when you can begin your journey from your own airport? It beats me to be supporting other competitor airports but that's just my opinion.
Either way, have a good holiday.
Join Date: Oct 2005
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I think it depends on how EI want to structure their medium haul routes post 2015. It has a unique mix of routes, BOS is highly seasonal and with weak-ish front cabin demand, but overall good volumes. JFK and ORD would be the year-round strong routes, with good demand in both cabins. MCO, again highly seasonal. I don't see the NEO or MAX being of much use in DUB, unless they want to use them to introduce some daytime eastbound departures from NYC.
I think the NEO & MAX should be able to serve BOS & JFK just fine, anything else would be a stretch and take a massive hit on cargo as well, so it would have limited uses out of DUB. So where would EI use 5 NEOs?
My thoughts would be:
DUB-YYZ/YUL
Daytime NYC-DUB, possible DUB-EWR, possibly DUB-IAD. -unlikely unless EI join STAR or STAR ATI
SNN-BOS - almost certain
SNN-JFK - almost certain
SNN-ORD - an outside possibility, if the range would work
ORK-NYC/BOS - probably more likely than SNN-ORD or a daytime EWR-DUB.
BFS-NYC/YYZ/BOS - again a possibility.
Frankly, 5 seems a bit on the low side, I could see 2x SNN (NYC, BOS, ORD) , 1x ORK (JFK, BOS), 1x BFS (BOS, YYZ), 1x DUB (EWR/daytime JFK).
I think the NEO & MAX should be able to serve BOS & JFK just fine, anything else would be a stretch and take a massive hit on cargo as well, so it would have limited uses out of DUB. So where would EI use 5 NEOs?
My thoughts would be:
DUB-YYZ/YUL
Daytime NYC-DUB, possible DUB-EWR, possibly DUB-IAD. -unlikely unless EI join STAR or STAR ATI
SNN-BOS - almost certain
SNN-JFK - almost certain
SNN-ORD - an outside possibility, if the range would work
ORK-NYC/BOS - probably more likely than SNN-ORD or a daytime EWR-DUB.
BFS-NYC/YYZ/BOS - again a possibility.
Frankly, 5 seems a bit on the low side, I could see 2x SNN (NYC, BOS, ORD) , 1x ORK (JFK, BOS), 1x BFS (BOS, YYZ), 1x DUB (EWR/daytime JFK).
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Originally Posted by Tom the Tenor
What about using Cork - Heathrow - U.S or Cork - Amsterdam - U.S?
Why would you want to use Dublin or snn when you can begin your journey from your own airport? It beats me to be supporting other competitor airports but that's just my opinion.
Either way, have a good holiday.
Why would you want to use Dublin or snn when you can begin your journey from your own airport? It beats me to be supporting other competitor airports but that's just my opinion.
Either way, have a good holiday.
Travelling with a 6 year old, so we want as little hassle as possible. Doing the pre-immigration on this side is appealing. As well as that I like to support Aer Lingus whenever possible.
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Omg wots the obsession with airlingus and crossing the atlantic ocean!!!!!!!!! Take the tunnel vision goggles off guys. thrers a whole world of out there to explore. think outside the box. ei should be looking at emerging markets too. use the new fangled longer range a/c to look at africa, the ex soviet stans, china, hongkong, hokiday routes like sri lanka goa etc.
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I agree, what about Dublin - Lagos and Dublin - Buenos Aires for the A350s!
It is funny that you mentioned Goa - I was just on about Goa in an email to a top kiddie in one of the UK holiday companies.
That's telepathy for you!
It is funny that you mentioned Goa - I was just on about Goa in an email to a top kiddie in one of the UK holiday companies.
That's telepathy for you!
US Airways wants the A321neo for T/A to replace their 757's.
US Airways pushes for A321neo to have flight range for Europe and Hawaii
If it has the legs and the economics, then there could be a nice market for Airbus out there.
JAS
US Airways pushes for A321neo to have flight range for Europe and Hawaii
If it has the legs and the economics, then there could be a nice market for Airbus out there.
JAS
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''Omg wots the obsession with airlingus and crossing the atlantic ocean!!!!!!!!! Take the tunnel vision goggles off guys. thrers a whole world of out there to explore. think outside the box. ei should be looking at emerging markets too. use the new fangled longer range a/c to look at africa, the ex soviet stans, china, hongkong, hokiday routes like sri lanka goa etc.''
The obsession with Aer Lingus and transatlantic routes, is the fact that EI makes money from operating these services. There is also a decent sized market for Ireland-USA due to business and cultural ties. Aer Lingus is also trying to leverage its position in Europe to operate a hub for Europe-USA/USA-Europe traffic
''Thinking outside the box'' was left in the days of the Celtic Tiger. There is a whole world out there to explore, but there are plenty of airlines fighting hard for this traffic. Emirates and Etihad are strong competitors and offer cheap fares to China, Hong Kong etc, which would eliminate any chance of Aer Lingus operating direct services to the East. Aer Lingus have said they are happy to feed BA and KL/AF via their hubs. If this makes them money, this is what should be done.
Sri Lanka and Goa are heavily leisure orientated routes, and would never work from Ireland. UK-Goa routes are operated by Monarch on a charter basis only.
The obsession with Aer Lingus and transatlantic routes, is the fact that EI makes money from operating these services. There is also a decent sized market for Ireland-USA due to business and cultural ties. Aer Lingus is also trying to leverage its position in Europe to operate a hub for Europe-USA/USA-Europe traffic
''Thinking outside the box'' was left in the days of the Celtic Tiger. There is a whole world out there to explore, but there are plenty of airlines fighting hard for this traffic. Emirates and Etihad are strong competitors and offer cheap fares to China, Hong Kong etc, which would eliminate any chance of Aer Lingus operating direct services to the East. Aer Lingus have said they are happy to feed BA and KL/AF via their hubs. If this makes them money, this is what should be done.
Sri Lanka and Goa are heavily leisure orientated routes, and would never work from Ireland. UK-Goa routes are operated by Monarch on a charter basis only.
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Omg wots the obsession with airlingus and crossing the atlantic ocean!!!!!!!!! Take the tunnel vision goggles off guys....................ei should be looking at emerging markets too. use the new fangled longer range a/c to look at africa, the ex soviet stans, china, hongkong, hokiday routes like sri lanka goa etc.
A very easy statement to type but a possible revenue debacle in operation.
EI currently have 7 A330, you are suggesting they take 1 of this (14% of the fleet) and just launch a route to 'an emerging market' Where is the market presence? Where is the existing customer base? If it is there,how do EI get them to switch carriers?How long can EI sustain losses just to 'explore the world'. Remember if EI want to offer daily service to such longhaul destination they would have to use 2-3 aircraft, even if they source 3 more A330 to do so they have 30% of their fleet concentrated on 1-2 risky new routes with no guarantee of profit.
I agree that the reliance on T/A traffic by EI is not a good thing, however it is hard to launch longhaul routes for a small airline as the risks are so much bigger.
Lets pretend we are Emirates for example, they have 169 aircraft (wikipedia) With such a large fleet and network they could make a provision that up to 5% of their routes can be 'under development' or 'growing'. Euphemisms for not yet profitable. EK (and other large airlines) have the network momentum to absorb some losses. EI cannot do this, they absolutely require all longhaul aircraft to operate on profitable routes all year round. Just look at how they restricted ops ex-SNN over the last 14 months.Look at how reticent they are to return to West Coast ops, they think it is marginal so will not take the risk.
Now personally I think EI are being too cautious (yesterdays positive 2011 results were presented in quite a negative pessimistic manner) but I recognise the reasoning behind this caution. I don't have to like it though.
A very easy statement to type but a possible revenue debacle in operation.
EI currently have 7 A330, you are suggesting they take 1 of this (14% of the fleet) and just launch a route to 'an emerging market' Where is the market presence? Where is the existing customer base? If it is there,how do EI get them to switch carriers?How long can EI sustain losses just to 'explore the world'. Remember if EI want to offer daily service to such longhaul destination they would have to use 2-3 aircraft, even if they source 3 more A330 to do so they have 30% of their fleet concentrated on 1-2 risky new routes with no guarantee of profit.
I agree that the reliance on T/A traffic by EI is not a good thing, however it is hard to launch longhaul routes for a small airline as the risks are so much bigger.
Lets pretend we are Emirates for example, they have 169 aircraft (wikipedia) With such a large fleet and network they could make a provision that up to 5% of their routes can be 'under development' or 'growing'. Euphemisms for not yet profitable. EK (and other large airlines) have the network momentum to absorb some losses. EI cannot do this, they absolutely require all longhaul aircraft to operate on profitable routes all year round. Just look at how they restricted ops ex-SNN over the last 14 months.Look at how reticent they are to return to West Coast ops, they think it is marginal so will not take the risk.
Now personally I think EI are being too cautious (yesterdays positive 2011 results were presented in quite a negative pessimistic manner) but I recognise the reasoning behind this caution. I don't have to like it though.
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EI is mostly cautious in where it opens routes. Then again, they open and close without having the marketing in place to do it right. The best example I can point to is the DUB-DXB route. Although it was started in the summer, who in their right mind would want to travel to DXB in 45 degree heat. So after a short while the route was pulled. Now we have both Emirates and Etihad going to that part of the world and both enjoying great success with it.
All you have to do is look at the fantastic results Continental had with opening routes to Europe using the 757. It is very possible that EI could replicate that success with the A321NEO.
DUB-YUL
DUB-YYZ
DUB-YOW
DUB-PHL
DUB-IAD
DUB-BWI
DUB-PTT
SNN-YUL
SNN-YYZ
SNN-JFK
SNN-EWR
SNN-BWI
So many options. If that market was that saturated, why did DL start JFK-DUB? Why did AA start ORD-DUB? Why did UA start IAD-DUB?
In my own opinion, EI suffered from a lot of mixed reviews on the TA product. For so long, it was hit and miss what aircraft you would get. But now that the product is uniform and some would say better to what the american carriers offer.
Final question to which I hope someone could answer. Why has Canada never been offered by EI?
All you have to do is look at the fantastic results Continental had with opening routes to Europe using the 757. It is very possible that EI could replicate that success with the A321NEO.
DUB-YUL
DUB-YYZ
DUB-YOW
DUB-PHL
DUB-IAD
DUB-BWI
DUB-PTT
SNN-YUL
SNN-YYZ
SNN-JFK
SNN-EWR
SNN-BWI
So many options. If that market was that saturated, why did DL start JFK-DUB? Why did AA start ORD-DUB? Why did UA start IAD-DUB?
In my own opinion, EI suffered from a lot of mixed reviews on the TA product. For so long, it was hit and miss what aircraft you would get. But now that the product is uniform and some would say better to what the american carriers offer.
Final question to which I hope someone could answer. Why has Canada never been offered by EI?
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Good question. Aer lingus served Montreal with B707s in the '60s and 70's. Toronto was served with B747s briefly in !981-82. I am open to correction on this but I think both were discontinued due to a combination of high seasonality and low yield. Prior to the ending of the compulsory Shannon stop, the Canadian authorities would not allow Aer Lingus to operate scheduled services into Toronto as retaliation for Air Canada not being allowed to operate direct into and out of Dublin. The Montreal service operated DUB-SNN- Montreal-ORD. A nice day's work for the crew. The Air Canada Toronto- DUB service of recent years used a very small B767 variant and operated only in June-July- August. For the reasons given by a previous poster this would not make sense for Aer Lingus but it does for Air Canada. Hope that helps.
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EI is mostly cautious in where it opens routes. Then again, they open and close without having the marketing in place to do it right. The best example I can point to is the DUB-DXB route. Although it was started in the summer, who in their right mind would want to travel to DXB in 45 degree heat. So after a short while the route was pulled. Now we have both Emirates and Etihad going to that part of the world and both enjoying great success with it.
All you have to do is look at the fantastic results Continental had with opening routes to Europe using the 757. It is very possible that EI could replicate that success with the A321NEO.
DUB-YUL
DUB-YYZ
DUB-YOW
DUB-PHL
DUB-IAD
DUB-BWI
DUB-PTT
SNN-YUL
SNN-YYZ
SNN-JFK
SNN-EWR
SNN-BWI
So many options. If that market was that saturated, why did DL start JFK-DUB? Why did AA start ORD-DUB? Why did UA start IAD-DUB?
All you have to do is look at the fantastic results Continental had with opening routes to Europe using the 757. It is very possible that EI could replicate that success with the A321NEO.
DUB-YUL
DUB-YYZ
DUB-YOW
DUB-PHL
DUB-IAD
DUB-BWI
DUB-PTT
SNN-YUL
SNN-YYZ
SNN-JFK
SNN-EWR
SNN-BWI
So many options. If that market was that saturated, why did DL start JFK-DUB? Why did AA start ORD-DUB? Why did UA start IAD-DUB?
"Why did DL start JFK-DUB?"
"Why did AA start ORD-DUB?"
"Why did UA start IAD-DUB?"
(I have helpfully coloured the major hubs in blue.
)DL, AA, UA, EK and EY can feed connecting traffic to a huge range of destinations across their respective hubs. Aer Lingus, no disrespect at all to them, can essentially feed long haul traffic through DUB to UK points, plus a few Slot 2 European destinations to/from JFK alone thanks to the late afternoon DUB-JFK departure. With all due respect, DUB connecting feed is just not in the same galaxy as any of the above airports, so just because a hub carrier can make one more spoke from their huge hub work doesn't mean that the carrier at the other end could achieve anything like the same success.
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Is there any prospect of a USA seat sale for post June 15 period ? We are thinking about going to the US in late June, and it would be a pity to book and then miss out on a sale.
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I laugh at all these suggestions at far away destinations. The bottom line is it won't work because EIN is too small. To fly to say SIN or back to SFO is a logistic nightmare for crewing. They don't have the resources for heavy crews up front and the flexibility for crew to down time in these places for two days etc. MCO is bad enough re logistics. EIN in my little world will continue to ply the old emigration routes for the foreseeable future as they know it's peaks and troughs and work with these. I also believe that the 350 can will continue to be kicked down the road for the foreseeable future and they will replace 330s with 330s. The 330 has been a life saver for EIN and has proved to be an economical workhorse in peak season. The big question tHough is the thin routes and this is where I do see this as a runner and the 321 neo coming into the fray. I see ORK-JFK/BOS as a runner and SNN in the winter runs happening. It also means they could sample new routes to the east coast with out the massive costs.....regrettably though I also see as a previous poster pointed out the only direction EIN knows for medium haul traffic is crossing the pond. EIN don't do long haul and it will remain so for the foreseeable future unless the company is bought out. If FR takes control of EIN from their track record of rack em, pack em and stack em I believe they will close down EINs current medium haul ops and start afresh with a new independent company....a modern day laker affair.....hmmm
If FR takes control of EIN from their track record of rack em, pack em and stack em I believe they will close down EINs current medium haul ops and start afresh with a new independent company
FR are long past the phase in their growth where they buy airlines to expand. Just look at what happened to Buzz.
As for FR Long Haul …. FR don’t do unions so why purchase a company with a legacy of union power in order to start a new low cost long haul operation? Frankly that makes no sense and doesn't match their business model.
JAS