Originally Posted by
Cozy F
Don’t believe so. They’re “Remedy Slots”, a trade-off for the EU sanctioning the acquisition of Aer Lingus by IAG.
If IAG started operating the same route again, the measure would cease to be a Remedy!
I don't think that is the way the remedy slots work. I think IAG are obliged to provide 5 slots available if an airline wants to provide competition of the Belfast and Dublin to London routes. I don't think there is anything stopping IAG also operating the route if they want to.
Understandably though the Belfast - Gatwick route was sacrificed to provide some of the slots as Aer Lingus would come off badly if in competition with both Ryanair and Easyjet.
I don't think there is much chance though of IAG using the slots for Belfast again though, as they think they can make more money using them elsewhere.
To be honest though, I think it could be profitable if IAG were operate the route under BA, as it would benefit from connecting traffic from other BA services at Gatwick as well as business one and one traffic. It don't think BA would need to compete with Easyjet in price in quite the same way as Aer Lingus would need to do.