But, realistically, Aer Lingus are not going to operate long-haul out of Cork
Why?
- Wrong aircraft types (A330 too large, A320 lacks the range)
- Fully utilised A330 fleet
- Maintenance issues from a single A330 based in Cork
- Dilution of existing market from Shannon and Dublin
- Almost everyone not going from Shannon or Dublin leaves on an EI flight to LHR or AMS
The only reason they might set up a service from Cork is to reclaim their territory if another operator came in.
In the meantime, if it ever does happen, it's likely to be a US operator of 757, 767 or 737-900s.
That's a very good summary. The periodic debate about whether the ORK runway can take a 330 misses the point of whether a carrier could
profitably operate a transatlantic service from Cork. EI wouldn't do so, for the reasons 840 states above. And in the case of a US carrier like Continental/United, one would have to ask why they would target Cork when they couldn't make a much larger unserved UK market such as Bristol work. If there were to be a transatlantic service at ORK (which seems unlikely), I think it would have to be a different US operator not currently serving SNN (i.e. with less risk of cannibalisation), such as US Airways. But again, this just doesn't seem very likely to me.