I'd certainly agree that summer routes to Spain and Portugal are at saturation point, possibly over-saturated.
There may be some potential for growth in Italy, which has a quite different clientele from Spain and Portugal. I'm also constantly surprised that nobody has brought back a charter to Crete, seeing how successful it used to be. Possibly Irish Travel Agents could do with slightly less conservatism.
However, I'm broadly in agreement with you. If there is to be growth, it will largely have to be based on new routes focussing on inbound tourism to the Cork/Kerry region, and perhaps and improvement in frequency UK regional routes.
It could be but traffic is up significantly to Spain/Portugal, on paper this route should of worked. It's not as easy to make money flying to Italy/France. It really needed some of the big operators such as Sunway and/or Falcon to get behind it. Sunway have expanded Mahon ex DUB this week from EMB to 733.
Problem with Crete is the distance and getting an operator to operate it.
EI also not returning GVA this winter.