Originally Posted by
EI-BUD
Exactly, great slack in the schedule on return of 1st wave aircraft, summer seasonal routes come to mind like Jersey and Isle of Man (a daily mid morning would work fine and just make an easyJet airbus operation unattractive to them, it's a hop at circa 70 miles. Other opportunities might be Cardiff as a daily leisure orientated route, Cork has potential perhaps an early departure from ORK to BHD (and vv) and staging on to say BHX, BHD may also provide flexibility for the BHX and EDI to Shannon routes which were ideally timed to meet the Transatlantic services ex Shannon, but that's all clearly for a later date. Donegal could be worth a try, if marketed properly could be a surprise.
A flight to Shannon every other day might also be worthy of consideration once the US get over the pandemic, feeding passengers to the US ...
The volumes on these routes when served by Flybe were impressive particularly MAN and BHX. Given the lower capacity and the reduced demand, no reason why EIR can't capture a respectable share of the market...
I agree that there may be room for expansion to perhaps include other destinations, but don't think Shannon or Cork would be among them.
Flybe seemed to run a lot of marginal or even unprofitable routes so I'm sure if Cork was even vaguely viable they would have tried it.
They would presumably have had some data on the route as from what I recall it was operated as a Flybe franchise by Manx2 before the tragic crash. I think the ATR planes would just be too big for the route. If it was going to work it would need a smaller plane and Eastern or Loganair would be better placed for this.
I can't see the point of a flight to Shannon as I don't think there would be the point to point demand. It would also make little sense for connecting traffic from Belfast as there is a direct bus from Belfast to Dublin Airport which takes less than two hours. Dublin provides a much wider range of destinations than Shannon and will also benefit from lower taxes than a ticket starting in Belfast. An even wider range of destinations from Belfast is provided by BA connecting in Heathrow (or Aer Lingus connecting to their partners via Heathrow).
Hopefully it is successful for them as competition will hopefully keep Easyjet prices competitive.