Originally Posted by
Skipness One Foxtrot
Surely you're conflating capacity growth with profitability, too much capacity isn't what a highly seasonal operation like DUB-US needs, hence the B757s being introduced.
Also, I think it's fair to say that just because the Irish Gov has no direct stake in Aer Lingus, it's a long way from encouraging a Middle Eastern airline to aggresivley target an Irish based company, the de facto flag carrier for want of a better expression.
Wasn't there a fuss at the time when Airbus tweaked the A350 design to the XWB that this was a little too capable for what EI was after?
There was an interesting article in today's SBP, about Vueling flying DUB-BCN and the way in which IAG encourages its subsidiary companies to compete against each other. It also went on to mention how each company competes for fleet additions, from the acft ordered centrally by IAG. If, as is rumoured, IAG is intent on reassigning EI's A359 order to EI, then two questions arise:
1) Was IB's plan for A359 utilisation better/more profitable/more aggressive than that provided by EI?
2) How is DUB - being a considerably smaller market expected to complete with Madrid?
IAG sees no problem in competition between its own carriers, why should it be surprised when a govt wants to spur growth in its own markets? It can hardly be surprised, given that the Irish govt has always wanted to encourage t/a growth ex-DUB. We can look at this from the perspective of encouraging a foreign carrier to compete with EI ex-DUB ... OR, we can look at it from the perspective of a government seeking to maximise growth and trade, which it should be doing.
It's a brave new world; I think the govt should be actively exploring avenues for growth and if IAG (no longer Irish owned) won't provide that growth, then maybe it is time for the govt to seek alternatives - not wholesale, but certainly in particular markets. What's sauce for the goose ...