The 146s were, I believe, mainly introduced to enable flights to LCY, to compete with the, then new, Virgin Cityjet. of course the 146s were seen around the network, as mentioned the UK in particular. I have never herd that they were introduced to compete with FR. Although the leases may have been cheap, operating costs would not
Hi Brian, this is not the case. Aer Lingus introduced the 146 as FR started adding 73S aircraft. Aer Lingus did not start flying to LCY until 1998 . In 1996 Aer Lingus started selling DUB LCY flights under code share with Cityjet who by this stage had severed ties with Virgin. All flights were operated at that time by Cityjet. Aer Lingus advertised the flights in their timetable as 'operated by Cityjet'. So technically Aer Lingus were not competing with Cityjet on London at that time.
At the same time Cityjet were operating DUB MAN ZRH route for EI and some DUB BRU flights were also operated by Cityjet. It wasnt until about 1998 that Aer Lingus started London City in there own right. (Cityjet came off ZRH and BRU in their own rite as part of this arrangement and worked for Aer Lingus instead of losing heavily operating their own services. This is well described in Pat Byrnes book about Cityjet.)
At some point Cityjet withdrew from London City and then Aer Lingus moved in and competed with Jersey European who did it for a time!
The Aer Lingus timetable of the time stated 'We have 4 146 aircraft which operate to UK Regional Airports', so clearly the 146 was purchased as a means to better compete with FR, lease costs being #1 issue compared to 737s were cheap and F50 was no competition for FRs 737s.
Personally, I would love to see Aer Lingus go for C Series. However, that is a while off!!
On the matter of 318s, this is a non starter, they are almost as expensive to operate as 319 and they were never very popular. This going to become very topical in the next year or 2 as Airbus bring out 320 Neo, and Boeing are faced with a major challenge as to what to do with their 737s. There are now good competitors coming along with seats in the 100 seat market with significantly lower operating costs by virtue of size and weight. This type of innovation may pose a real threat to 737s and to 320 family. As such I think Aer Lingus needs to look to something different hence CSeries? What does anyone else think?
EI-BUD