Those slots are clearly less attractive for long haul arrivals, the turns are too short for long haul too. IAG can reshuffle the decks between BA, IB, EI and VG to get optimal scheduling across long, short haul, over the Irish Sea and LCC operations. No-one else at LHR can do that.
DUB, ORK, SNN and BHD all have service around the time of the Croatia slots. I presume Croatia operate from T2, as EI do?
Looking at the slots Croatia are looking to sell a hypothetical NOC schedule could look something like:
NOC 0830 LHR 1000 -234-67
LHR 1050 NOC 1220 -234-67
NOC 1745 LHR 1915 1-3-56-
LHR 2000 NOC 2130 1-3-56-
The time of the slots necessitates a NOC based/overnighting aircraft, unless EI were to do some serious shuffling. They might be able to get flights from LHR on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Sundays around 2200, when the last ORK flight departs. LHR is relatively quiet at that time of the day.
The question is what EI would do with an aircraft in the middle of the day, either leave it sitting at NOC or try some new routes. Do they muscle in on flyBe to the UK, continue with LGW service or try the likes of Paris, etc. Clearly NOC-LGW works for EI, its about all thats left of the LGW experiment. The EI service to LGW is the only service from the west of Ireland to South London. Would the traffic follow EI around the M25? Against this, they have never tried twice daily, as far as I remember.
Last edited by brian_dromey; 23rd Oct 2016 at 11:51.