There is a clause in the incentive scheme that's meant to prevent airlines from
switching from one DAA airport to another in order to avoid full charges
ryan2000- was reading your post that containted the above. This seems to be a wishy washy type of rule. If Aer Lingus were to say that they were losing money in winter on Cork/Barcelona, surely they are free to make a commerical decision to end the route and open other routes that they forsee as having potential?
I can see that such a rule could be controversial?
Re Alliances-
It is hard to see that Aer Lingus will jeopardise its relationship with BA and avoid OneWorld but one cant avoid thinking that the future surely must be more focused on an alliance that benefits Aer Lingus on the atlantic?
Aer Lingus would far prefer feed passengers from Ireland to the various US cities on its own direct flights (and connect with United and Jetblue) than feed BAs long haul network at LHR where Aer Lingus only get a short haul flight in terms of revenue?
Simultaneously, by encouraging passengers to use EI transatlantic services in the main instead of via BA at LHR they could see a fall in demand for seats on DUB LHR and in turn have maybe a few slots per day to use on other flights from LHR? While they may be able to retain a relationship with BA independent of Star, perhaps any deterioration in feed may be an invitation for BA to return to Dublin?
Furthermore, with T2 kicking off soon Aer Lingus would need to make the atlantic routes as popular as possible to ensure that they will have a balance between the number of flights to satisfy EU flights feeding into Dublin and local demand.
In addition, if Star is the way forward within the context of the current 'relationship' with United, Continental will effectively be part of that soon?
EI-BUD