There IS a space at LGW now. traffic has fallen off a cliff ( a smallish one ) since XL went under and the bulk of the long haul moved to Heathrow. Hence there is a once in a decade opportunity to get slots at a busy London airport, so it is undeniably an opportunity. I think the level of co-operation with BA might be a fundamental here, but good luck with having the balls to get on board here.
It certainly is a stroke of brillance by aer lingus management, now instead of just competing with ryr on most of it's routes out of ireland, it gets to compete with the rest of the big europian airlines out of gatwick, i am sure easy and virgin will welcome them with open arms and fair trading.
Michael O Leary knew Aer Lingus were going back on the route. He just wanted to the be the person seen by the people of the local area as the saviour of the West and would be the one to reintroduce it. Unfortunately, you don't just decide these things overnight and he was well aware of the plan to launch it again by Aer Lingus for the summer schedule in 2009 once the local staff had signed off on the new work practice agreement. The new fees with Shannon had already been agreed. Hence he made the statement two days before the said staff agreement was signed.
Yep your sure are right, the aer lingus management sure have it all worked out, just like the original float they worked out with the goverment to raise capital, opps forgot to factor in the gotcha ryr factor. Then they had to relay on wealthy irish businessman and the pilots to bail them out. brillant all of them.