Jamie2k9 - Thankyou for your response.
I have just taken another look at Ryanair's website. It is currently showing six departures daily MAN-DUB for Winter with departures seven days per week at 08:00 12:00 15:15 17:20 18:00 21:40. For the early part of the winter, all six daily departures are priced up and bookable on the Ryanair website. This amounts to 42 departures per week, an increase of 12 over the previous schedule.
Aer Lingus is showing 34 departures per week (based on February) comprising 19 x A320, 15 x AT76.
A look back at the February 2015 timetable actually shows 36 departures per week with 20 x A320* and 16 x AT76. I cannot confirm whether all these flights operated as timetabled, but it appears that this coming winter season's schedule requires two additional rotations just to match last year's offering. Any 10% rise here would seem to be a mirage unless a substantial revision is forthcoming. Most disappointing.
As you indicate, the number of flights offered on MAN-DUB in the final analysis remains to be seen. But at this point Ryanair is selling 42 departures per week based on sample November dates fully priced up and bookable. True to their word - so far. The February flights were not displaying prices when I checked just now so frequency may yet change when these are loaded, but the online timetable is showing a similar schedule to November.
The exact wording taken from the Aer Lingus blog reads: "10% more seats on Dublin to Manchester with up to six flights daily". If this Aer Lingus release was just puff (and I did read the Aer Lingus statement, not an external media re-interpretation) then it has not done their situation any favours. At best it makes Aer Lingus appear disingenuous as a company. At worst they have provoked a decisive reaction from Ryanair which can only be damaging to EIN's own bottom line. Maybe they should be more careful what they put out if they intend to embellish the narrative?
*NOTE: I recall some of the morning EIN flights using A319's last Winter. However, this would not account for a 10% increase y-o-y. Using a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, 6x A319 (144 seats), 14x A320 (174 seats), 16x AT76 (72 seats) gives 4452 return seats for a Feb 2015 week. Projected Feb 2016 gives 19x A320 (174) and 15x AT72 (72) for a total of 4386 return seats. Configs are taken from Airfleets - I don't know whether they're 100% accurate but they seem about right. If this is the final version of their programme, EIN is showing a small reduction in capacity here ... not growth of 10%.
Last edited by Shed-on-a-Pole; 25th May 2015 at 03:37.