DUBLIN - 2

[waffler]

I have been on an Aer Lingus flight which diverted to Katowice from Krakow and the handling and transfers went very well.
Perhaps you would be better placed directing your complaint to Krakow airport and ask them why they do not have Cat2 ILS on both ends of the runway which is subject to common poor visibility.

[DublinPole]

I'm glad they diverted you to Katowice, but when I and my friends were on the flights (in 2010 and 2011) it was always to Berlin and once a friend was diverted to Warsaw, but it was never to Katowice, the reason given was always that it is not an airport which is served by Aer Lingus.

I agree that Krakow (and Modlin) need some better facilities for landing in fog as both airports are suspect-able to fog due to their location, but in the days in question in the past nobody forced EI to land at Berlin and they decided to and ultimately they did themselves damage by doing this.

There are a good five or six airports in Poland that could handle an A320 but EI on a good number of occasions decided to go to Berlin, you can blame the needing to divert on the airport without doubt, but the choice of destination lays solely with EI at the end of the day.

[irishlad06]

The final destination of divert doesn't solely end with EI, there are many other factors to take into consideration. Can ground handling be put into place at short notice, if the ground handler doesnt handle EI anywhere else it is hard to put in place details where the airline can be charged.

Other factors are can the airport accommodate the flight at that time, if there are numerous aircraft diverting, say an airline that is already based at the airport that airline will get preference to landing and precious ramp space for aircraft. Re-fuelling contracts is another factor - does the airline have contracts with the company that provides refuelling so that the aircraft can leave again, there are so many more factors to be considered in a diversion, obviously if the diversions is a mayday then u land at the next possible destination regardless of the consequences on the ground such as not having contracts in place as safety comes first.

I get that u have been annoyed and frustrated as its not nice for anyone to land at the wrong airport but there are other things to consider and its just not as black and white as you make it out.

[DublinPole]

The final destination of divert doesn't solely end with EI, there are many other factors to take into consideration. Can ground handling be put into place at short notice, if the ground handler doesnt handle EI anywhere else it is hard to put in place details where the airline can be charged.

But other airlines including a few flag carriers on many of those occasions had exactly the same problems regarding handling agents, but they still landed at much nearer airports and got their staff in their home country to make the necessary arrangements if it could not be done by staff at the airport.

Other factors are can the airport accommodate the flight at that time, if there are numerous aircraft diverting, say an airline that is already based at the airport that airline will get preference to landing and precious ramp space for aircraft. Re-fuelling contracts is another factor - does the airline have contracts with the company that provides refuelling so that the aircraft can leave again.

Well I know for a fact it was not the fact the airports could not take the diversions, because as stated previously, on all of the occasions I, or my friends were diverted to Berlin, EI flights were the only flights diverted out of Poland and the crew on all occasions made it clear such decision was being taken, on the basis that SXF was a regular EI airport and this is the basis on which diversions are made. On one occasion they tried to pull the wool over our eyes by declaring that all airports in the country were closed whilst on a friends flight they claimed that other airports were not able to accommodate A320's despite Wizz Air among others were landing exactly the same aircraft.

I get that u have been annoyed and frustrated as its not nice for anyone to land at the wrong airport but there are other things to consider and its just not as black and white as you make it out.

It's pretty black and white to me and most of the other passengers who were diverted. The fact is problems regarding fueling arrangements, transport and handling agents could be sorted out but they may cost money and cause someone in Dublin a lot of stress. But it seemed that it was much easier to palm the passengers off to a handling agent so it became the problem of someone else.

The point I'm trying to make, is yes, there were obstacles and problems to overcome, but it would have been nice if they did try to overcome them, rather than just palming off to the handling agent at first opportunity and cause the passengers to arrive at their destination nearly 18 hours later than originally planned. It's not good customer service and I expected better from Aer Lingus. Easyjet, who incidentally have the same fuel supplier at Krakow Airport and the same handling agent, were able to divert to Katowice and Krakow is the only airport they serve.

[EI-A330-300]

Aer Lingus have being refused promission to land a KTW a number of times. Ryanair will get top priority from KTW as will LOT. I was on a Ryanair flight and around 12 flights diverted to KTW and there was no bus transfer to KRK as they hadn't enough to take 12 loads of passengers. Warsaw is used a lot for KRK diversions but again they have also being refused promission to land. In most cases if KRK has problems with weather other airports in Poland do to. Its up to KRK airport to actualy spend money on instaling equipment to stop this. Berlin is used as in most cases there is no other option.

As I say its not confirmed if it will be dropped as it was included in the summer 13 schedule a few weeks ago but not put on sale.

[DublinPole]

Aer Lingus have being refused promission to land a KTW a number of times. Ryanair will get top priority from KTW as will LOT. I was on a Ryanair flight and around 12 flights diverted to KTW and there was no bus transfer to KRK as they hadn't enough to take 12 loads of passengers.

That is interesting without doubt, however surely there are other options such as Poznan (Previously served by EI), Gdansk, Wroclaw etc. Of course they're not ideal but they're a lot better option than Berlin. In my experience LOT and Wizz are top priorities at Katowice followed by Ryanair, seeing as the former two have a base there. In truth though they shouldn't be cherry picking based on airline. More it should be first of all flights which are originally due to land there, then those with the lowest fuel and then there should not be any real favoritism.

Warsaw is used a lot for KRK diversions but again they have also being refused promission to land. In most cases if KRK has problems with weather other airports in Poland do to. Its up to KRK airport to actualy spend money on instaling equipment to stop this.

From my experience on FR at least, then generally tend to use the nearest open airport to the one that is closed in diversions Europe over, regardless of if it's regularly served. Although they, and Wizz Air have had some problems with Warsaw (Chopin) in the last few weeks when it comes to handling diverted flights from Modlin, with planes getting stuck in Chopin and being denied permission to leave for hours and hours. I agree though that flag carriers tend to always go for WAW for KRK diversions rather than KTW.

I do agree however that KRK needs an upgrade of infrastructure, the terminal is bursting at the seems, there is only one baggage belt and it's crazy overcrowded and that is before you get to deal with the lighting situation. Ideally all of the airports need to have some different ownership structure, as right now one company has a large share in pretty much every airport. KRK and WMI are in terrible locations for fog and for this reason PPL should pull it's finger out and provide proper infrastructure for all it's airports, rather than just WAW.

Berlin is used as in most cases there is no other option.

AL made it clear on many occasions (at least in 2010 and 2011) that their procedure is always to land at an airport that is served by EI as this would prove to be a better outcome for passengers. They did not consider other airports.

[Kinder]

From my experience, Aer Lingus decisions on diversions was always quite strange.

When they operated LGW-VNO daily, once they decided to divert to TLL and other time even to HEL! When usually airlines decide to divert to KUN or RIX. KUN is a base for Ryanair and LH or SU do not have problems to divert there.

[DublinPole]

Goes along with the policy they stated to me, KUN or RIX are not served by Aer Lingus. although Helsinki is pretty much a terrible choice much worse than TLL they'd have been better off landing in Poland if the sensible choices were not available. At least I'm guessing the road transport went on the ferry if you went to Helsinki so that would knock a few hours off?

[EI-A330-300]

KUN airport can only handle a few divertions. Its at capacity with more than 4 or 5 Airbus or Boeing aircraft...

[DublinPole]

KUN airport can only handle a few divertions. Its at capacity with more than 4 or 5 Airbus or Boeing aircraft

It is limited in capacity yes, as are other airports but the point is that it's somewhat of a co-incidence that other airlines can divert several flights a day without any problems yet Aer Lingus time after time have problems diverting just one a day. The law of averages and probability mean that all things being equal, this should not happen and a much higher percentage of EI flights are being diverted further afield than that of other carriers.

The fundamental fact is that if EI don't have good arrangements or strategy to dealing with non served airports, this is something that needs to be addressed. The average customer who has an experience like me and others is always going to be put off from using such company in the future as it's a bad experience.

The crew were less than helpful on several occasions, purely kicking us out of the plane, saying they'd be around in the airport to give us further info, then very quickly taking off back to Dublin. We didn't even know who the handling agent was or how to contact them in Berlin. Instead we had to go up to the info desk and get them to call EI Dublin.

On a slightly different topic, what happened to EI432 this morning, did it suffer some technical fault as it returned to Dublin just under an hour after leaving?

[Espada III]

Time through departures in the evening?

I am travelling Ryanair to Manchester at 22:40 on the evening of 5 December.

Assuming that we have our boarding passes, how much time should we allow from arrival at the terminal to getting to the gate, including security etc?

Thanks

[Jamie2k9]

I am travelling Ryanair to Manchester at 22:40 on the evening of 5 December.

Assuming that we have our boarding passes, how much time should we allow from arrival at the terminal to getting to the gate, including security etc?

Thanks

I would allow an hour. After securiy its about 10-12 minute walk. MAN is second last departure of the night so not very many lanes at security open one ot two max. I would also advise you are at your gate 25 mintues before departure as you can be refused if you arrive after 22.15.

Tonights 22.40 to MAN gate closed at 22.20 and aircraft left stand at 22.26. (inbound aircraft arrived 21.58 and was scheduled for 22.15)

[Espada III]

Thank you - most helpful

[thebig C]

Thanks Dublinpole....very informative posts!

As an aside, didn't Smartwings briefly operate into Dublin before? Possibly 2003-2004 before EI or CSA flew Dub-PRG??

c

[stab3.5up]

They did i would guess for no more than a few months

[DollarBill]

While I agree with DublinPole in relation to the EI choice of diversion.

I do have to address his comment in relation to 'the crew being less than helpful' As a customer I can understand your frustration but EI has great issues with its internal comms. In this case (and the vast majority) I can confidently assume that the crew were probably not privy to any helpful info. EI do not give usable info to their crews beyond "divert here, refuel and return when able". Even being able to tell the pax the handling agent name would be useful to them.

[Jamie2k9]

Over 1.3 million passengers in November up 5%

Europe 600,000 up 4%
UK 560,000 up 1% (FR reduction had no affect)
Transatlantic 117,000 up 11%
Middle East/Africa 39,000 up 91%
Domestic 4000 down 3%

Year to date over 17.8 million up 2%

Latest News > 1.3 Million Passengers In November At Dublin Airport

[dpconlan2011]

BA lhr

Does anyone have load factor info for november on ba and ei on lhr- think ei are winning hands down on the punctuality stakes (bhd also)- any particular reason for this?

[Hangar6]

BA EI LHR

Some thoughts

BA came back after a long abscence with 8 roundtrips per day annouced
this never happened its 7

except weekends when it goes down to 5

EI Have 12 r/t

BA times were always odd, inherited from BD and their loads are very low
LHaul connecting traffic would have in years gone by opted for LHR
But with Emirates and Etihad and now Turkish all offering bran dnew pkanes
no terminal change, competitive prices from Dublin ...BA have let their market go...

Loads on BA are shocking ..... and I mean shocking..
Plus their punctuality LHRDUB is very poor, surprising even

So you can expect schedule reduction from 7 to 5 weekdays in S13

No idea about BHD

But if i was going ROI or NI to Syd TYO, HKG SEL India Pakistan SA even I would take Emirates , Etihad , and their loads are unbelievably high , with 70% min as LHaul connections

Its a changed world

[EI-BUD]

Perphaps BA's grand plan involves elbowing in on EI's DUB market until EI decide to withdraw BHD and then BA withdraw DUB. I still am amazed that BA is putting 7 daily rotations onto DUB LHR, and 6 to 7 daily from BHD. Like DUB, BHD has one less per day than Willie Walsh talked about.

BA in effect is expending up to 15 daily slot pairs to fly LHR to DUB and BHD routes that EI can cover for them from the point of view of feeder traffic, and while yes BHD might have been a good route for bmi, BA has exchanged and opportunity to cooperate with EI and in return, guarantee the interline at LHR and also also BA to use these precious slots ex LHR for all of these new markets that BA wants to get into....

I think DUB frequency is no more than slot fillers and it will be reduced down to say 4 or 5 daily sooner rather than later.

EI-BUD