I cannot agree that BA already compete on IRISH routes
No service to CORK , only FR and EI
No service to SNN only FR and EI
No service to KIR only FR
No service to NOC only FR and EI
and the domestice legs
No service to LDY only FR
Service to BHD competes with EI BE EZYamong others but no FR
BA are cutting back on service to DUB , after less than a year , and never delivered on the promised 8 a day to BHD as yet anyway
What I meant was that BA operates againt FR on LON-DUB, I did not state any other route
Something just tells me BA will take any slots they can from IRELAND or Domestic UK and switch them toLonghaul when they get the planes
No one (and myself) is suggesting anything otherwise...
I think there is more chance of FR buying IAG , for cash , than there is of EI selling BA their slots for BA to divert these slots away from IRELAND or Domestic UK ,
FR is only interested (apart from EI) in buying LH (which includes LX, OS and SN)!
http://theairlineblog.********.co.uk...lufthansa.html
But who knows MOL always has a plan and he sure wants to expand and has the cash for IAG which is not performing well at all ......
BA is doing fine, its IB thats the porblem...
The Minister for Transport has just announced formally that the government will not be selling its 25% share in Aer Lingus to Ryanair.
Despite the fact they are having to cut spending (thanks to the EU)?
and Ryanair made an offer they could not refuse...
If cleared by EU they could still buy 75% but unlikely staff will sell their share either. The govt have announced they will appoint advisors in the new year so perhaps someone else will buy it. Who knows Ryanair may then try to buy that entity!
Could they buyout all other shareholds bar the government and staff (which would give then a majority stake) and force the airline to close and transfer its assets to the "new" EI (100% owned by FR)
Or they could offer both parties a better deal
Or EI could buy back FR stake and raise money for it by selling their LHR/LGW slots
I just get the impression that a transformational move is coming for EI, I'm not sure what but whoever buys the govt. stake will give an indication. I know WW has said IAG aren't interested but the pension issue will have to be sorted before any sale and with such slots at LHR would IAG not be missing out big time not to go after it.
IAG should have a look at buying a shareholding in EI, to protect it from a FR takeover and have deeper ties with the airline
EI will look to make a purchase of annother carrier , they have to grow
I doubt they need to do that...
BA have lost the feed traffic no matter who they choose to code share with and I still think they will come back to EI and re visit the code share as they need those DUBLHR and BHDLHR slots to fly to all those places in CHINA and India with unpronouncable names.
Without a doubt, but thw question of BA leaving Ireland altogether is another matter...
EI are currently well run and VERY succesful but a small player.
True, they have a better chance of surrvival than most carriers of its size in Europe
Intersting times but its great that such a tiny wee ISLAND has two profitable shothaul carriers in these tough times , and maybe even RE and WX will get going again ,
CityJet (which is barely has any operations in Ireland, is mostly based at LCY/CDG, is owned by the French-Dutch and is now partly Belgium as well) has not much of a future...
Aer Arran is now is now nothing more than an affilate of EI, in terms of its operations
I would hesitate to call FR and irish airline for the purposes of this discussion. FR flies a large multitude of routes across Europe and makes no reference to the profitability of individual routes. While FR is an Irish company, its reach stretches far beyond the island, although IRL-UK routes are thought to be some of the most profitable in the netowrk. By the same token cityJet has a very small presence in the Irish market. You could argue that FR and WX are profitable in spite of their Irish operations, rather than because of them.
Unlike CityJet, FR has large operations at Dublin, Cork and Shannon, so you could call it a Irish Airline, but most of their operations come outside of Ireland
In other words, its the Guiness of the avation world
They also have the "harp" symbol on their planes and the Irish flag next to their reg
To me it looks as if the Irish Government has made this decision on purely political grounds, probably connected with the Irish trade unions. The EI share price is well below the FR offer price. The share price will probably now collapse and those poor staff in the company bought into the company at privatisation will have lost all their investments. EI is going nowhere, has an appaling balance sheet when the pension liabilities are included and every development plan they have followed has failed. It looks as if they are heading for that giant airline scrapheap in the sky.
True, is purely poltical, I am surpised they can even do this considering they have had a bailout and are cutting spending...
But Remember, with the exception of FR all of Europes airlines have a dismal share price/market cap, mainly due to the costs and the state of the industry
They have also had to deal with the one of the worst ecnomic downturns in Irish history and they have face strong competition from FR and have made some bad mistakes (like their now closed base in LGW)
Despite this, they are in a better shape then most Medium/Small European airlines (like IB for example) and are still making profits
If they are to enter the great scrapheap of the sky (home to airlines sch as PA and now BD), it will more likely be due to a FR takeover and not BK
Remember, A Ex-AA CEO once said:
"I don't invest in airlines. And I always said to the employees of American, This is not an appropriate investment. It's a great place to work and it's a great company that does important work. But airlines are not an investment"
The same goes for pretty much every single airline in the business, maybe excepting EK and FR (and a few others...), but they are a very small (and lucky) number