Aer Lingus - 4

[Le Rocket]

OK People, let's look at this from the real world please.
Aerlingus floats and DM heads off on holidays...mmm! Two days later, there's a hostile bid for AerLingus and golden boy is on the beach. The share price is down to 242 and two recent vital decisions on the future of the company have been made with absolutely no major shareholder approval or mandate!

Now for all you ignorant wannabees out there, get the facts before you start to leap. Imagine I've been a Captain in Aerlingus for the last few years and dedicated my life to the airline, good times and bad. I'm from Belfast or the like and think that this might me a good opportunity for me to return home to the ole alma mater. This man is telling me that I have to resign my job, give up all I've worked for and attend assessment for Belfast..I don't think so!
T & C's can work across the board. Look at easyJet, they hire people all over Europe on the same contract, and let them decide where they want to go. If the base is available they go, if not they wait. There are no bully boy tactics and the process is fair and transparent. This is merely a smokescreen for a greedy CEO's personal agenda, who thinks that loyal workers throughout the airline can be walked on...well they can't!

Sorry, DM you're no Michael O'Leary.

P.S Should have gone to specsavers

[akerosid]

Schadenfreude

According to de paper, Tony Killeen claims there is a question mark over the validity of the FR proposal to force a vote on the SNN-LHR move. You can just imagine that the govt is trying every trick in the book and looking for every possible loophole to avoid this.

For the govt, the prospect of having to face a vote on this is political dynamite; after Cullen having made the comments he made last year about the minimum level of traffic between SNN-LHR, it would look EXTREMELY bad for them to vote against and the EI mgmt would probably resign if the govt voted with FR. Damned if they do and damned if they don't, but it's pure political theatre; say what you want about MO'L, but I can't begrudge him a certain admiration for forcing the govt into doing something it wants desperately to avoid: being asked to take a principled stance on something related to aviation.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishex...945-qqqx=1.asp

[B257]

Living-in-the-past your one man crusade against shannon is admirable. Keep up the good work. You wouldnt be tom the tenor in disguise

[fullrich]

Living in the past should be very proud of himself. A 35 year old plane spotter from minneapolis who knows all about the Irish landscape.

[vkid]

no doubt he's from Cork anyway. The glee from the Southerners is sickening and as an Irish person embarrassing

[DistantRumble]

As someone says it will be interesting to see the vote [ if it even comes to that ] since abstention is also an option

[Aisle2c]

vkid, I'm also from Cork and I haven't been "gleeful".

[Aisle2c]

Originally Posted by De Paper

Last night, junior minister Tony Killeen said there was a legal question mark over the potential validity of Ryanair’s proposed vote and he is having this examined.

However, he welcomed the calling of the EGM and called on the board of Aer Lingus to use the occasion to announce the restoration of flights to the mid-west airport.

Now, that is running with the hare and hunting with the hound !

[vkid]

my apologies Aisle2c, i should have said some southerners.

[CaptKremin]

Originally Posted by vkid

The glee from the Southerners is sickening and as an Irish person embarrassing

You've obviously led a sheltered life vkid, if you've not realised by now that the Irish (ROI) are the greatest population of begrudgers on the face of the earth. Its a wonder it stands as a nation at all, because the mutual hate and suspicion is universal. The Southern Irish should've invented the word Schadenfreude, it describes them perfectly, that feeling of joy you get at seeing your neighbour squirm.

I reckon it must be a symptom of a post-colonial hangover.

[vkid]

maybe but many Cork people are masters of it. The village mentality that many of them have is mindboggling. If its not Cork it doesnt count. Peoples republic me arse

[840]

I've tried to avoid getting involved in the Shannon bashing on here, but I do remember similar attitudes being taken when the Dublin service was removed or when Aer Lingus pulled out of cargo in Cork. We're probably just more aware when we're on the receiving end.

When it comes to Shannon Airport, the voices are always likely to come from Cork, because Dublin is too big for people to look on Shannon (or Cork) as a serious rival and everywhere else is so small they are fighting for scraps.

[BCALBOY]

Bfs/lgw V Bfs/lhr

What a shrewd move by MOL to suggest EI uses its slots at LGW
to launch BFS , that way it can keep SNN/LHR and everybody is happy.

Probably sounds very sensible and plausible to the General Public ,
but who would win and lose from such a switch.

Intro of BFS/LGW would....

1/Be damaging to NO.1 Ryanair competitor Easyjet who already operate
BFS/LGW.

2/Be damaging to another Ryanair low cost competitor Flybe who
operate BHD/LGW.

3/ Be damaging to the prospects of AerLingus making a success of
BFS as a new base . BFS/LHR is the key part of the project
and without it I doubt the base is a goer.
BFS/LGW isn-t a substitute.....loses the benefit of codeshare
with BA on LHR ( a codeshare on LGW offers much less potential).
Yields are lower on LGW than LHR and wud get worse if EI joined
thoses already on the route.

4/ Be damaging to EI as it is forced to keep SNN base where it obviously
doesn-t make much money.

Would anybody benefit ?

Ryanair would as EI wouldn-t be able to start DUB/LGW offering
competition to their service and it would probably kill the EI BFS
base before it starts .

Sounds like very clever idea to me and well worth the hit MOL
would take as a 25% shareholder in EI

[The_Bean_Counter]

Dub Lgw

Hard to see EI transferring LGW slots to BFS from DUB when they don't even have the LGW slots for DUB in the first place ?

[BHDflyer]

If EI started BFS-LGW it could damage easyjet, flybe, and the ability to codeshare with BA. But of course it wouldn't affect good old ryanair!
Infact the only airline it would suit is THEM! Why does oleary keep bangin' on as if HE owns aer lingus. Is 75% not meant to be bigger than 25% (the stake ryanair own)?

[Livinginthepast]

Heading for a winter of discontent. A classical stalemate situation where management will not negotiate until the IALPA withdraw their strike notice and IALPA will not withdraw their strike notice until the management withdraw their proposed conditions of employment.

[Aisle2c]

Aer Lingus backs down on ORK-LHR route threat

AER LINGUS last night dramatically axed a plan to cancel Cork’s early-morning flight to London Heathrow and run the service from Belfast instead. Airline bosses — already under fire for axing the Shannon-Heathrow link in favour of Belfast — had planned the switchover of Cork’s vital business flight to take effect in March.

Following lobbying late yesterday from the city’s business community, Aer Lingus last night confirmed Cork’s 7.30am departure for Heathrow would be saved. The former State-owned airline had also planned to axe the 10.15pm return service, switching the flight to Belfast instead.

[GayFriendly]

Although being an outsider to this debate (never been to Belfast, rarely use EI) I have been reading this thread with great interest. IMHO it would seem to me that the decision to set up base in BFS has been made more due to political pressure than strictly commercial reasons and its success hinges almost entirely on the operation of a route to LHR. Yes, there are destinations not available from BFS at the mo but surely EI would have seen this potential and introduced something a bit different than FAO, AGP, BCN etc?? And surely it was obvious from the outset that to introduce BFS-LHR flights there would have to be cuts somewhere to accomodate cos there just aint the slots at LHR to go round. It also seems that EI have done the classic and set up a new base with worse T&C's than existing staff, causing unnecessary anger within the workforce - I speak from bitter experience having once worked for BA EuroGatwick!! I'm sure that once things settle down EI will make a success of its base at BFS but I do think either BHX or MAN would have made a better choice with no need to please politicans or make sacrifices just to be able to fly to LHR. But as I say i'm just an outsider and these are only my opinions..................

[ESCNI]

SNN folk would like us all to believe that it was a political decision so that another political decision could simply reverse it.

Whereas to actually admit that it was a financial decision would leave them without a receptacle to urinate in.

[Livinginthepast]

RTE reports "Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion contacted IALPA last night to say it was 'agreeable' to meeting pilots. The IMPACT union, to which IALPA is affiliated, had previously rejected an earlier offer from Aer Lingus of possible discussions as 'insincere'." Is this a true reflection of the situation? I don't like IMPACT's methods.