Aer Lingus - 4

[OltonPete]

BFS

Naturally as a BHX local a disappointing decision for us here in the West Mids but some consolation in that they have not announced some of ridiculous routes rumoured from Belfast such as Barcelona, Malaga etc.

It is bad enough to miss out but to see aircraft wasted go on routes where competition is rife is just madness. Heathrow, Amsterdam seem reasonable and if Rome & Budapest is added they should be okay.

I wonder if they will ever consider BHX again (or Manchester) with Easy testing the water and Baby adding flights as well.

I think that they have missed a good opportunity at BHX with no competition on MAD, TXL, ARN, HEL, VCE, PSA, BUD, VIE, VLC RIX and TLS (possibly Oslo).

Also there is room for LOCO competition on CDG, PRG, KRK, possibly BCN and then there are the potential Polish routes plus Munich, Brussels, Zurich & Copenhagen (National Airline routes) which have only one airline operating.

Maybe 8-10 months down the line?

Pete

[EI-SHN]

SNN-DUB-LHR?

That better be a ******* joke. The SNN-DUB route will be gone fairly soon, and besides jave you ever tried to connect at DUB? The lines are un real. The drive from the Shannon airport region takes about 3-4 hours. Driving to Cork takes about 2-3 hours.
My fathers company will very much affected by the loss of the route. My father and his collegues use the route every week to get to Amsterdam. His company has been down sizing its once large office at Shannon, in favour of Amsterdam. With Shannon losing its most vital link, people in the office are worried about it. No one fancies moving to Amsterdam, or losing their jobs. The likes of GECAS will also be very much affected. A lot of people and businesses will be hurt by this decision.
http://www.aerlingus.com/cgi-bin/obe..._OID=536886693

Notice how Aer Lingus are too cowardly to mention the dropping of the Shannon-Heathrow route.

[Aisle2c]

"Driving to Cork takes about 2-3 hours."

Hey, EI-SHN, I used to have a car like that too !

[en2r]

Driving to Cork takes about 2-3 hours.

The new Shannon tunnel will cut that drive down and make Cork far more accessible from the West. At last Shannon people can see how annoying it was for everyone else in the country being forced to travel via Shannon when we wanted to go to the states. Ye were happy to tell everyone else they had to travel via SNN yet when the boot is on the other foot your attitude is somewhat different.

[vkid]

interesting points to note from Mannions meeting this morning. He admitted the route was profitable, refused to answer many questions and refused to talk to the unions. People will fly Ryanair before they use EI from ORK, thats a certain.

[en2r]

People will fly Ryanair before they use EI from ORK, thats a certain.

People travelling to London will probably use Ryanair but people travelling further afield who previously connected with BA at Heathrow will have to fly EI from either Cork or Dublin to Heathrow or Amsterdam (or indeed Malev from Cork via Budapest).

[Liffy 1M]

My father and his collegues use the route every week to get to Amsterdam. His company has been down sizing its once large office at Shannon, in favour of Amsterdam. With Shannon losing its most vital link, people in the office are worried about it. No one fancies moving to Amsterdam, or losing their jobs.

Funny, for years we were told that the key link for businesses was from SNN to the USA, with little mention of LHR. BTW Aer Lingus do serve AMS non-stop from ORK, which I would have thought was a more pleasant prospect than a transfer via LHR (one of the most awkward airports through which to connect).

The point that the Shannon lobby are missing (or ignoring) here is that Aer Lingus has been privatised and, like any other commercial company it will act in a manner that maximises return to shareholders (who, ironically, include the very workers complaining about today's developments). One has to assume that the company sees the immediate and future potential at BFS as far outstripping that at Shannon and that, while the SNN-LHR route may be viable, Belfast is expected to be more profitable.

Given that the last EI transatlantic departure from Shannon is in the early afternoon, it must lead to considerable inefficiencies to have ground staff on hand to service just two flights from London, arriving at 1630 and 2045 respectively.

[Tom the Tenor]

The Galway bus stops at snn on the way to Cork - try it, you might like it!

Yes, when the boot is on the other foot it is quite another story from the crowd in Shannon. Snn knows now what it feels like to be shafted too.

The first thirty years are the worst and as for the breast beating on today's Joe Duffy Show. It was worse than the Primetime show a few years ago.

[Liffy 1M]

Joe Duffy took the typical RTÉ line - sympathising with the poor semi-State workers and not asking them any hard questions. They all made it out as though the EI management are complete fools, taking the supposedly illogical decision to drop the SNN-LHR service. The lady who spoke venomously about Dermot Mannion heading off from Shannon to "Stormount" (sic) to meet Ian Paisley also showed how partitionist people in the Republic can be vis-a-vis Northern Ireland. She has probably never set foot in the place, although it is part of the same United Kingdom that she so wants Shannon to be connected with!

[B257]

In fairness I would say the workers in shannon could not give a ring about belfast and its economy. Its hard to blame them really. Tom i wouldnt be so smug if i were as it just shows you to be a tit really. What has cork gained from this ? Or do you take pleasure in people losing there jobs

[MarkD]

Funny you should mention that - apparently the Sinn Fein website has separate releases welcoming the BFS services and decrying the loss to SNN. Talk about running with the fox and hunting with the hounds?

I'm not sure it's really fair to say that the DUB slots are separate from the SNN and if that CO deal is as described above there will be hell to pay from the Shannon lobby.

[OneWorld22]

*snigger*


MOL has written to the Govt to request that AL keeps the Shannon slots to LHR!

Last Updated: 07/08/2007 18:35
Ryanair writes to Ahern over Shannon

Ryanair said today it has written to the Taoiseach offering to work with the Government to request Aer Lingus to maintain its Shannon-Heathrow services.

Aer Lingus today confirmed it is to drop its Shannon-Heathrow routes. It will now serve Heathrow from Belfast, which was unveiled as the airline's first hub outside the Republic today.

Ryanair claimed the Government had "lied" in public statements during its takeover bid for rival airline Aer Lingus last October.

Ryanair quoted then Minister for Transport Martin Cullen on October 2 nd 2006 saying Heathrow served a "unique role in ensuring connectivity to/from Ireland" and that this connectivity is "fundamental both to provide connections to/from Dublin, as well as to/from the regions".

The airline said the Minister had then said he considered that four London-Heathrow slot pairs for services to and from Shannon would be "critical to ensuring connectivity to these airports, because this is the minimum necessary to ensure a spread of flights throughout the day".

The Government owns 25.3 per cent of Aer Lingus and Ryanair owns 25 per cent.

Ryanair said it believed that, on this basis, the board of Aer Lingus would find it difficult to refuse a joint request from Ryanair and the Irish Government to maintain the "critical" connectivity between Shannon and Heathrow.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said the then Minister for Transport "assured the Irish people that the Government would not allow a privatised Aer Lingus to reduce its current operations between Shannon and Heathrow".

"As usual this Government's promises are worthless. I believe this Government also lied to the European Commission when - in opposing Ryanair's offer for Aer Lingus - it claimed that the preservation of services from Shannon to Heathrow by Aer Lingus was vital for Irish consumers," he said.

"Today's sacrifice of Shannon in favour of Belfast reduces that competition and proves that both Aer Lingus and the Irish Government lied to the European Commission. Had Ryanair's offer for Aer Lingus been successful, Shannon today would continue to enjoy four daily flights to Heathrow, as Ryanair's offer committed it to maintaining Aer Lingus's Heathrow slots."

Mr O'Leary said Ryanair looked forward to "an early and positive reply" from the Taoiseach, who could save the Shannon services by taking up his airline's offer.

"Sadly on its own Ryanair cannot prevent this closure at Shannon because with just 25 per cent ownership, we do not have any power or influence over Aer Lingus," he said.

[EI-SHN]

Ye were happy to tell everyone else they had to travel via SNN yet when the boot is on the other foot your attitude is somewhat different.

What you don't seem to understand is that Cork doesn't need services to the US, they just want one. Shannon needs services to LHR to serve the West, because it's a vital link for business and leisure.
Cork has its routes to all over Europe to the main hubs like LHR, AMS, and CDG, not to mention others like MUC, FCO and MAD. All SNN had was LHR, and we made do with it. We had connection to the US and Europe and other destinations with BA and so forth, but now we have to haul ourselves over to Cork or Dublin to catch a connecting flight.
If it's so easy for us in Clare to haul ourselves to Cork for a flight to Heathrow, then why are you bitching on about having to drive to Shannon to catch a flight to a destination 5000KM away, when you could just fly to DUB with RE, or is that to much of a hassle for you?

Lets throw all of this on top of EI leasing four LHR slots to CO, in exchange for slots from them at LGW. Four LHR slots that could have been used to launch the service from BFS. With EI up against FR on the DUB-LGW route (plus BA) I don't see tham doing very well.

[Flightrider]

Shannon needs services to LHR to serve the West, because it's a vital link for business and leisure.

But it's not a vital link for the airline unless it can make money out of flying the route. Welcome to the world of reality. Airlines have to do everything they can to maximise profitability and they are not social or charitable undertakings. If Shannon needs a service to LHR so badly, either the Government needs to apply for this to be a PSO route and offer subsidies to ensure that it is operated; or it shouldn't have sold its controlling interest in Aer Lingus to start with so that it could exercise sway over Aer Lingus' management decisions if it wished. Looks like it's a bit late for either, so there isn't really much option but to move on and get on with life.

[EI-SHN]

But it was profitable. DM said it himself. EI are leasing four LHR slots to CO. Those slots could have gone to BFS instead, and then Shannon could still have its profitable link to Heathrow, and the rest of the world.

[Aisle2c]

What you don't seem to understand is that Cork doesn't need services to the US, they just want one.

Not true, Cork City and County alone have 500,000 people, providing a ready made market (and that isn't mentioning the populations of Waterford, South Tipp and South Kerry). But above all, there are lots of American companies here who would just love to have a direct connection to the US.

[akerosid]

I think FR's press release will make life very much more uncomfortable for the govt; that the previous minister made what can clearly be interpreted as a commitment to the SNN-LHR route has to have some impact on the situation.

Of course, the govt's silence can be interpreted as their knowledge/suspicion that EI's objective is to obtain a better deal from the SAA, comparable to FR's. The govt must hope it is the case, because whatever the economic arguments, the idea that SNN-LHR can be stopped just to make way for BFS-LHR and the leasing of slots to Continental Airlines is not something the FF people will want to hear on the doorsteps; and don't think they will forget this easily ...

Likely outcome: the route will be kept on, albeit at a lower frequency; EI will get a better deal from the SAA, but the decision by EI will be portrayed as an FF victory by Dooley, Killeen etc.

[Aisle2c]

I was watching BBCNI news a short while ago and it mentioned in its report one of the key reasons why the slots were moved to BFS .... Aer Lingus reckon they can sew up the business & Governmental trade between BFS and LHR. The fact that the announcement was made in Stormont with Big Ian casting a paternal smile on it, suggests that Aer Lingus are not far off the mark.

[Tom the Tenor]

Oh, they are pulling out all the stops now aren't they! M O'L is wheeled out to get Ryanair on board to get EI and the Irish Government to reinstate snn-lhr flights! Oh boy, if there was ever proof needed on what a twisted up place snn is there it is now for everyone to see. Well, why does M O'L not seize the opportunity and get Ryanair itself to fly to Heathrow? It is not as if Ryanair do not have the means - they have the aircraft and shed loads of money to pay for LHR slots if they want.

EI-SHN, so you are expert on Cork are you? Your remark "What you dont seem to understand is that Cork does not need services to the US" - on your say so, is it?

The veil has slipped again and for the genius, B257, I should hope that there will be no EI lay offs at snn - send another A320 to Cork along with all the snn staff on the firing line. Might get Madrid back again for us!

[DrKev]

Originally Posted by Liffy 1M

The point that the Shannon lobby are missing (or ignoring) here is that Aer Lingus has been privatised and, like any other commercial company it will act in a manner that maximises return to shareholders (who, ironically, include the very workers complaining about today's developments). One has to assume that the company sees the immediate and future potential at BFS as far outstripping that at Shannon and that, while the SNN-LHR route may be viable, Belfast is expected to be more profitable.

Spot on. Lets put it another way, Shannon cannot give enough support to a Heathrow route to keep airlines from finding better business elsewhere. People continue to think of Aer Lingus as the "national carrier" and that somehow that means it must serve the needs of the few above it's own need to maintain profitability. That is simply not the case any more. A rude wake up call for some, perhaps, but a wake up call none the less.