There are new routes Aer Lingus could certainly make a go off from Cork: Brussels, Budapest, Milan, Palma de Mallorca, Frankfurt, Venice, Vilnius, Zurich.
Hi there Charlie Roy; While I agree with many points you have made in relation to EI operation at Cork and possible opportunities, I would disagree with above statement, in the context of a 320 anyway.
There would be some demand for these destinations but take Brussels for eg Jet Magic failed to capture the loads on a small Embraer (135?). Perhaps their name and reputation didnt attract the audience that would want to fly this route but still of the mind that Cork Brussels too marginal to be a runner, and also the frequency would need to be often enough to make it work.
Budapest, Milan and Frankfurt; same story here. The sectors are also longer than many others and I would question if they would work.
Aer Lingus did eg Belfast Milan and if I could draw a comparison between Cork Milan and Belfast Milan, this would lead me to believe that it would be a no go. Belfast Milan was a complete disaster, now it was winter and some aircraft were coming back up with 9 and 15 passengers! Jet 2 are doing a charter now and have no risk as a travel agent is selling the seats as far as I am aware.
If we were not in recession some of these would be possible but not yet and maybe a smaller type is needed eg Q400 or Embraer 170/190.
Palma is a must for the summer in my opinion, but then again while some route may work in summer the question is would Aer Lingus be sacrificing freqency on an existing profitable route?
Cutting LGW back to daily is a complete disaster and serves the point well that Aer Lingus should now decide not to open new routes (ie direct route matches eg ORK LGW) that are head to head with Ryanair as they will bleed cash and Ryanair will keep the pressure on until EI pull out. The Aer Arann/EI offering is another matter, as Aer Arann operating as Regional can compete more effectively as they can offer frequency and hopefully not be fully reliant on point to point traffic and hence having a limited exposure to Ryanair.
EI-BUD