Are they playing games with everyone or is it all an elaborate wind up? A crackingly good one if it is!

Fruitnfibre; I remember when BA closed the Dublin Heathrow route on Mar 24th 1991, (Cork went that month, and Shannon route had closed early Feb mid season schedule). BA said at this time that they were using these slots on LHR to German destinations plus I think Copenhagen saw an increase in frequency too. I dont that there was any connection with the Virgin situation at that time. DUB LHR was losing money as BD was on the route since 1988 and were increasing market share, and EI was losing a fortune

EI-BUD

EI-BUD

I'll bow to your superior knowledge on the DUB market but quite frankly to pull all ROI routes to free up a few German slots is an excuse that came directly out of the BA PR office. It was no coincidence that this period marked an escalation in the battle with Virgin not forgetting that AA were also involved in the subterfuge having only just arrived in LHR the year before. It was this 'win at all costs' policy that landed BA in court eventually.

fnf

Fruitnfibre; I dont know about superior knowledge!! But thanks for the compliment. I dont think that BA axed Ireland in order to do extra German flights, but rather they clearly said that they were losing alot of money on Ireland routes. My memory of them in ROI was from 1988 (my first airline timetable) until 1991, they did some time on the following routes
Dublin Manchester daily by B11
Dublin Birmingham daily by B11
Dublin Heathrow 6 daily (73S, B11, 757) (in last season they did 0615 take off which in my experice the earliest departure on any London service)
Shannon Heathrow daily
Cork Heathrow daily both by B11 or 73S.

I remember that the flight number are now used I think on LHR Copenhagen! Was a sad day on that March evening. The BA crew handed in there badges/passes at the BA desk and that was the end when the 73S left for LHR around 9!! (Sad that I actually remember that!) . I know they were then represented for the following year in the form of manx airlines franchise on various routes, Loganair on some routes, and then Cityflyer Express which eventually became a 4 daily 737 on LGW and the very short lived flop DUB LCY!

You are right about Virgin the whole dirty tricks stuff was at it height at that time and in the summer of 1991 Virgin were gaining lots of new slots at LHR and started many new TA routes (trying to remember was 1991 the 1st year of VS at LHR, I think that Dirty tricks campaign was mainly centred around LGW? Maybe someone can correct me on that)

EI-BUD

*tumbleweed*

So nothing announced from Ryanair yet then. They are announcing SOMETHING aren't they?

Well at the moment, Ryanair's booking engine is showing around 20 rotations less per week for Summer 2010 compared to Summer 2009.
Summer 2010 sees the Cork based aircraft doing the same number of flights but flights carried out by Dublin based and Stansted based aircraft have been reduced.

20 fewer rotations is as much as 7000 fewer passengers per week.

Maybe the announcement is going to be this reduction, just like the announced reduction for Dublin for Summer 2010 :ouch:

Baby B735?
 

Just wondering if anyone knows if bmibaby uses a B733 or B735 on the Sunday EMA flight? Thanks

Its a B735 for tomorrow, and the week after, and am pretty sure it will be like this until the Summer flights start at the end of March

Very good thank you very much:ok:

Just one more question. Are baby still not carrying out CAT II approaches in Cork?

Kilo Delta to be exact.

BMI Baby at Cork
 

Still no CAT 2's by Baby at Cork.

Thanks guys for the replies.

Passenger Numbers
 

It's been reported that Shannon handled 2.72 Million passengers in 2009 meaning that Cork with 2.75 Million has pipped it to be the Republic's second biggest airport for the second year in a row (Cork handled 3.25 million in 2008 while Shannon handled 3,092,000). It remains to be seen what Belfast City's passenger numbers are like, and whether Cork remains the third busiest airport on the island after Dublin and Belfast International.

Passenger Numbers 2009
 

Belfast Intl: 4.54 Million
Belfast City: 2.62 Million

Meaning that yes, Cork, with it's tragicly disastrous 2.75 Million remains the third busiest airport on the island of Ireland...

Ryanair new routes Cork 2010????????????

FR? Would be surprised to be honest...

RE just announced Cork - Glasgow (6 a week) as part of the EI franchise agreement.

Glasgow
 

Great news about Glasgow!!! At long last! And the prices are very interesting :ok:

Aer Lingus Aer Arann linkup
 

Great news for Cork. Looking at what the announcement means for Cork:
New Routes:

• Glasgow (daily)

Transferred from Aer Arann:

• Edinburgh (increased to 11 weekly including the introduction of business friendly twice daily flights on Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays)
• Bristol (increased to daily)
• Cardiff (increased to daily)
• Jersey (increased to 2 weekly)
• La Rochelle (increases to 2 weekly peak season)

Despite the rumours, Birmingham and Manchester remain daily A320 services and continue to be operated by Aer Lingus themselves.

No news on Southhampton? Guess the deal may be that Southampton bound pax can use the new EI LGW-ORK service.

It will be a regret of mine never to have flown the ORK-SOU route.

Aer Arann are continuing to operate Cork to Dublin and Belfast City in their own right so perhaps they will continue to operate Southampton (and probably Lorient and Nantes as well). As far as I recall, the summer only flights from Cork don't usually go on sale until about February.