Aer Lingus - 5

[EISNN]

Aer Lingus pull SNN-JFK and SNN-ORD for Winter 09/10 schedule. Four flights will pass through a week to go onwards to BOS. Not surprised at ORD route being pulled. Interestingly DL pulling JFK for the winter also. CO will continue to serve EWR.

[NPEF]

....and pull Dub-SFO and Dub-IAD for the winter also. Announcement due this afternoon.

[beamwidth]

End of the line for Shannon T/A

The Irish media are covering the announcement later today of Aer Lingus' retrenchment on the atlantic

RTÉ News: Aer Lingus to drop routes - report
Aer Lingus to cut key routes from Shannon to the US - The Irish Times - Fri, Jun 12, 2009

So what happens to the Cabin crew based there? All A330 rated. It would appear that the only A330 this winter will be Dublin-Shannon-Boston - crewed from Dublin.
A320 ratings being given to the crew there, but to what end?
Hardly an expansion from Shannon of short haul.
Charters? Cork flights?
Anyone any info?

[gaelgeoir]

Whither Open Skies

I can't avoid being struck by the irony of Aer Lingus' transatlantic performance- just two years ago they were claiming that Open Skies was about to finally enable them to fulfil their transatlantic destiny with tales of a possible 20+ U.S. cities as destinations.

We are all aware that the current economic downturn isn't helping but one wonders why the airline so eagerly embraced a change that has seen them hammered by the U.S. competition in their own backyard.

[ryan2000]

SNN meltdown

Amazed that SNN JFK is gone before BOS. Continental will have the field to themselves for the winter. Capacity and cheap fares will be very limited. Should boost SNN LHR and ORK LHR with pax travelling on to US.

[840]

I suppose the fact that Continental would still be competing to New York, while they'd have Boston to themselves is why Boston survived rather than New York.

So all that still leaves the following transatlantic at Shannon if I'm correct

- Continental to Newark
- Aer Lingus to Boston
- Delta to Atlanta (Summer Only)
- Transat to Toronto (Summer Only)

I assume BA won't be picking up passengers when they refuel there?

[vkid]

JFK not gone yet but " under review" according to RTE. Chicago gone from SNN but not 1 bit surprised.

RTÉ News: Aer Lingus scraps some long-haul routes

Have to agree with Gaelgoir though about Open Skies..EI were really pushing for it and they dont seem to be able make a go of it at all. Whatever about route cutting at SNN, Washington and San Fran gone from Dub as well.

They seem to have made a complete hash of things the last few years and are paying the price now.

[840]

In fairness, there is a major recession on both sides of the Atlantic and that's pretty much outside the control of EI. You aren't seeing much transatlantic expansion after OpenSkies, nothing like what was predicted.

The question is what Aer Lingus do when the world economy picks up. There's only a limited number of routes that can be sustained on Ireland-USA traffic alone, so they need to sort out their connections to the UK and Europe or acquire some smaller aircraft.

That is assuming they are still around then. Which is why they need to concentrate on cutting losses at the moment.

San Francisco, like LA, suffers because it has to survive on point to point traffic. There's nowhere beyond them to connect to.

[airbourne]

Its a brave man that expands in a recession. Look at Richard Branson. Im dismayed by this talk of cutting back. However not surprised. EI for YEARS counting on the shamrock and the nice crew to pass them off as an average airline flying across the pond. They have left their ta fleet goes to pretty much the dogs before they give it an overhaul and in todays saturated market people want more, in fact they demand more and EI just wouldnt step up to the plate.

So will these costs speed up retirement of -DUB and -JFK, which seem to be the thorn in the side of the TA fleet now?

Couple of questions that I would like to see answered?

Could a A321 be reconfigured for a SNN-ORD?
What are the loads on the SNN-ORD currently?
Who gave these management monkeys a job?

[vkid]

agreed 840 but open skies isn't that new and they've had lots of time to ensure long haul wasnt totally dependant on Irish-Us routes and they did very little to diversify in the good times imo. It will be intersting to see how long they can hold out before short haul services are cut too.

[NPEF]

Barrington on RTE Radio

EI chairman just reported that

- SNN-JFK decision now being revisited due to Delta decision
- DUB-SFO will return in 2010
- DUB-IAD will most probably not return in 2010
- A320 be be based at SNN and SNN-LHR to go to 3 x Daily
- no A330's to be based outside Ireland

[840]

3x daily SNN-LHR

I wonder is the extra slot coming from Dublin, Cork or Belfast.

Cork probably wouldn't make sense in terms of aircraft utilisation, but what this could mean for Belfast is interesting to say the least.

As regards the A321 to ORD.

I don't think it's possible without modification to fit extra fuel tanks. Also, flying A32x series transatlantic is prohibitively expensive and only worthwhile if you have a lot of business passengers.

[airbourne]

They can do it with a 757, why not a 321? Just throwing it out there.

[Skipness One Echo]

You cannot operate an A321 from SNN over the pond commercially. It's not the same spec as the older more capable B757, it wasn't built to do that.

[airhumberside]

- no A330's to be based outside Ireland

End of the MAD-IAD plan?

[vkid]

Not trying to be totally negative here but you have to wonder what the hell is going on at EI..

- SNN-JFK decision now being revisited due to Delta decision
( that just admits they really have no idea how to compete with other airlines or can't afford to...what does that say about their ability to compete at LGW)

- DUB-SFO will return in 2010
(we'll wait and see?)

- A320 be be based at SNN and SNN-LHR to go to 3 x Daily
(more or less back to where SNN was 2 years ago before Belfast..what was the point in all that..regardless of what people thought about the base at belfast they got some serious negative publicity over the SNN-LHR route. I know costs were an issue but seriously, is that how they handle costs issues...we heard so much crap about SNN being unviable etc and now they're back with a based aircraft??? Boggles the mind...only thing I can think is Mannion had his own plans and now he's gone the realities are sinking in. It will be interesting to see what happens in BFS)

[ayroplain]

The 757 is a much more versatile aircraft than the 321. As well as being capable of being a workhorse it has a much longer range ( I think an extra 1000nm or so) and is 180 mins ETOPS certified. The winglet fitted versions are to be seen all over the UK (and Dublin, too) doing T/A on leaner routes in these hard times.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but you might question if a small airline like EI was wise to put all their eggs in one basket. What are they going to do with all those 330's? Whilst the good times may come back over the next ten years what happens in the meantime?

As a matter of interest how many 330's do they actually have?

[riptack]

Fleet

I think they have 9 at the moment with EI-DUB due to be sold this year and EI -EDY just added this week

• EI-DUB - A330-301
  (St. Patrick)
• EI-JFK - A330-301
  (St. Colmcille)

• EI-LAX - A330-202
  (St Mella)
• EI-DAA - A330-202
  (St Keeva)
• EI-DUO - A330-202
  (St Columba)
• EI-ORD - A330-301
  (St Maeve)
• EI-DUZ - A330-302
  (St Aoife)
• EI-EAV - A330-302
  (St Ronan)
• EI-EDY - A330-302
  (St Munchin)

[EI-BUD]

A320 be be based at SNN and SNN-LHR to go to 3 x Daily
(more or less back to where SNN was 2 years ago before Belfast..what was the point in all that..regardless of what people thought about the base at belfast they got some serious negative publicity over the SNN-LHR route

vkid; The issue was that Aer Lingus wanted to have an anchor route as it were at the new base and to create scale, ie a popular route, and a mechanism to put Aer Lingus on the map as being an operator at BFS fairly quickly. In addition, the end product is that Aer Lingus has a vastly cheaper cost to operate at Shannon.

I think that EI have to operate as a commercially viable outfit and if there has been overcapacity at SNN over the winters for them to axe the same routes makes sense. However, if a large amount of capacity is removed from the market (ie Delta to JFK) then they can see it is being viable.

Moreover, going out with a press store such as Shannon routes axed, the story could be percieved as JFK route may be saved..Already today commentators are saying hopefully we can get JFK route saved. Its quite a clever stroke, avoiding the type of negative press that it did when the Heathrow link was axed in 2007!

EI-BUD

[Skipness One Echo]

I think that EI have to operate as a commercially viable

Did you just realise that? Ireland US is massively low yield and seasonal, always has been. When was the last time Aer Lingus got a leasing deal for a large part of the A330 fleet over the winter months? Or did they fly them at a loss month after month making the money in summer only.....

They are right back where they were when they flew the same three B747s until they were ancient, having learned little from past errors.