It wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if the launch was pushed back a couple of months, the reopening of travel hasn’t happened as expected and we’re still none the wiser on what will or won’t be allowed so forward bookings must be almost non-existent.
What Aer Lingus (and other airlines) will be aware of though is how quickly demand picked up last summer during that brief window of opportunity when everything reopened. If the government give the go ahead, there’ll be a sudden rush of bookings and any airline will want to be ready and waiting to start operations.