Originally Posted by
adfly
Aer Lingus have put Belfast City and Dublin on sale for the winter, each operating 13x weekly.
KLM to Amsterdam returns to 14x weekly, but currently will be using larger aircraft from the start of 2025. Looking at a few dates in Jan/Feb there is the following:
6x E295 (Mon-Fri + Sun morning flight)
1x 737 (Sat morning flight)
7x E190 (Mon-Sun evening flight)
Flights in Nov/Dec are currently still showing as all E175's.
Great to hear about the larger aircraft, especially their new E195 E2s. Perhaps the perfect aircraft for SOU? Recently cleared for ops at LCY so performance obviously not an issue. The TUI Belgium outfit have a few being flown to holiday destinations. Porter who are a low cost carrier in Canada have recently ordered 50+ odd and already received half in a year or so.
Perhaps there is an airline in Europe or a new operator out there willing to take a chance on this jet or the A220 to operate from smaller airports like SOU. Why would they do that you might say? Well Porter have gone from q400s to it and are making it work, Breeze are a new low cost airline built around a smaller jet in the A220. Air Baltic out of nowhere are going to operate 50+ A220s.
But why would an existing airline like Easy etc take on another fleet type? Well JetBlue a large low cost operator in America are building a sizeable A220 fleet alongside A320/A321. Many legacy carriers do in Air France, Delta, ITA and Azul.
And the potential clincher? The 737 and A320 are sold out for the rest of the decade and more. Huge growth for air travel predicted. Looks like the E2 and 220 will be the only options.
Disclaimer, this is merely speculation posted on a forum, not something to be taken as a fact. Of course the dream scenario would be for Easy to order the A220 which would be the perfect replacement for the A319. Not all of the routes flown by that plane can be ungraded to the A320. Saying that, if it was going to happen it would probably have already happened by now.