I met the Mrs in Brum! No complaints from me about the new EI service to Birmingham. Yes, must have been EI squeezing the schedule tightly to get in the extra rotation.
RE are double daily ORK-BHX and WW are one daily so sure enough there will be plenty of competition for EI to deal with once the service begins in the summer.
Equally, a ORK-GLA at 3 a week would have also been a short rotation. Glasgow has the critical mass of population and notwithstanding Roy Keane, Celtic etc, Glasgow is in my opinion better than Edinburgh for the arts and music and therefore has a tourist potential all of it's own in that area.
LG from GLA have been great for Cork and I salute them but for the likes of Sean Citizen swigging his jar of Murphys in Cork tonight the sight of a venerable SF340 is hardly a turn on for a nearly two hour flight in the middle of December?
As for a FR PIK flight. Hard to see with a 189 seater? If FR do base another aircraft at Cork and if again the schedule is made really tight, well, there may be a chance? With the unexpected success of FR LPL guess anything is possible!
Berlin is a booming city and again has the critical mass of population. The western areas of Poland are also not too far away and Berlin may be a gateway for journeys home from Cork for some Polish people now working in Ireland. At three a week I am sure the new route will do just fine.
Looks like Madrid is gone for another year. The EI 174 seaters are big aeroplanes, too big in some ways for trying out new routes from Cork? Madrid is one potential destination from Cork that might be better introduced by Iberia in that interlining pax with the huge IB network to Central and South America would be as seamless as possible?
IB have A319s and have A318s on order and are still flying the equally venerable MD-87s. A 100+ seater certainly has it's attractions at trying out new routes as JetBlue are demonstrating with the ERJ-190? Sure do hope Cork gets a Madrid in the next year or two if I am pardoned for indulging in a Christmas wish list!