Originally Posted by
biddedout
An interesting response from the CAA Northsands.
I have been pondering these figures too and wondering if Flybe management have been questioning why the CAA and DFT appear to be bending over backwards to make life easy for Aer Lingus, BA and IAG to virtually monopolise the BHD LHR route. It looks like over 60% of the passengers carried by the supposedly UK company - Aer Lingus UK are being done on a wet lease basis allowing Aer Lingus the convenient flexibility of not needing to put another Airbus on the UK register. One airframe has been running for years on this UK domestic route without interruption so they have had plenty time to sort this. There isn't even a need to get the crews a UK licence so long as they are allowed to do it as a wet lease. Flybe hopefully are demanding that if EI want to do this route, they should get a G-reg or bugger off, particularly considering the legal battles and appeals that Flybe had to go through with the CAA etc. to just to prise those remedy slots out of BA's mitts.
Similar for Emerald. Everyone else has been shafted and has had to quickly adapt to comply the new regime , so why are Emerald being given an easy ride. They have had a couple of years to get a UK AOC running but still no sign. Yet more UK domestic flights not directly regulated by the CAA and not on the G register. If the CAA continue to allow this excessive wet-easing, then they will soon run out of airlines to regulate.
Ryanair must be a bit miffed too after setting up R(UK) to cover UK domestics when it looks like they could have just wet leased.
I believe the whole Aer Lingus BHD network is set up as British Airways flights operated by Aer Lingus in terms of licensing. So the proportion of wet leasing on that basis is tiny as a proportion of the UK carriers network. And lets face it, BA (and Cityflyer) have operated many of these flights themselves since the demise of Flybe. and Stobart Air.