Originally Posted by
OzzyOzBorn
It may not be that simple. Over the weekend, I looked to book a BHD-MAN sector for mid-April, only to find that no carrier has flights on sale. The Aer Lingus A320 is gone ... presumably back to Dublin. But the replacement Emerald AT76 services are not yet loaded for bookings. It is possible that FlyBe 2.0 could launch flights from BHD before Emerald does. They're both new operations. I'm not predicting which will enter the market first, just pointing out that neither are on sale yet - so FlyBe could still be the one with first-mover advantage on some former Aer Lingus routes if they launch before Emerald do.
Of course, I acknowledge that EasyJet operate BFS-MAN throughout. But those routes operated by the Aer Lingus A320 from BHD may be left temporarily vacant.
If EIR do take up every route they've announced they will then there won't be any gap in service it will go from from one to the other carrier and I've even seen it suggested they'd use damp leasing of BA cityflyer a/c if needed.
I'd virtually bet on the fact the reason they've not announced yet is it's a game of cat and mouse and strongly suspect they'll not go head to head on any route. EZY were already doing BFS-MAN Ozzy before BE went bust, definitely room for two carriers in the market - not sure three would work for long. Also if BE launched BHD-MAN and BHX as is being suggested that's basically the two aircraft they have spoken for, it would need a minimum of three daily rotations to give them any sort of commercial edge.