So with Stobart absorbed into this new entity, what happens to those aircraft flying branded as Aer Lingus Regional?
If that arrangement is allowed to expire, it shouldn't make a massive difference to the Cork routes, other than losing the Aer Lingus sales platform in Ireland; they are largely point-to-point thin routes. For the Dublin routes, feeding Aer Lingus long-haul is part of the bread and butter. Aer Lingus certainly won't want to lose the feed, but it may not match what Virgin want. Working things through, Delta will fundamentally own 15% of the new company and they aren't going to be happy feeding a transatlantic competitor.
I don't think there will be any changes, for now, as the current Aer Lingus Regional deal runs to 2022. CityJet & Air Nostrum have both expressed interest in tendering for the franchise, now they have merged I expect them to be a tough competitor for the contract.
I think one of the changes might be that the ATR operation for SAS would move to the RE certificate, streamlining the fleet a little bit, with the ATRs for EI and SK and the Q400s for VS. The E-175/195s will be interesting to watch. The 195s are meant to be gone from BE by years end, but Stobart will still have 5 190/195s.