Aer Lingus Summer 2008
 

All EI flights for next summer now seem to be loaded. All routes from last summer are returning except for Warsaw which is ending in February and Madrid. Changes over this summer include:
Rome - 4 weekly vs. 3 weekly this summer
Malaga - Daily vs. 5 weekly this summer
Berlin - 3 weekly vs. 2 weekly for most of this summer
Manchester - 4 weekly - was withdrawn after only a few weeks this summer but they seem to be willing to stick it out against BMI Baby next year
Birmingham - Continues daily until the middle of May at which point drops to 5 weekly?
Munich - Will operate 3 weekly for the summer (Did not operate last summer).
Amsterdam is going back down to 11 flights per week.
Like this year all flights will be operated by the 4 Cork based aircraft with the exception of the 5th Heathrow flight. The Cork based aircraft will all now operate at least 3 rotations per day (this summer 1 aircraft operated just 2 per day - Malaga and Warsaw/Rome).

SO it seems most of the capacity will come from increasing the utilisation of the fleet then, no bad thing, it drives costs down!

Its a pity EI dont seem to be launching any new destinations though, but its good to see the old ones come back on the other hand. Perhaps we might see a few W patterns or something like that, as I dont think EI have launched any new destinations for next summer from DUB either.

LHR will see a capacity increase as its 5x321 for the summer as opposed to 3x320 and 2x321 last summer. So overall EI should grow slightly this year at ORK.

Brian.

Cork Airport talks with Dempsey next week

Friday, 26 October 2007 08:20
The Chairman of the Cork Airport Authority, Joe Gantly, has confirmed that he will meet Transport Minister Noel Dempsey next week in an attempt to resolve the row over who should pay the €220m debt at the airport.

It will be the first meeting between the two men since Mr Dempsey took over the transport portfolio.

The meeting is taking place against a background of tensions within the Cork Airport Authority board, with a number of members understood to be considering resigning.

www.rte.ie/business

brian dromey->I haven't been able to get an authoratitive answer on this, but as far as I can see Aer Lingus has no more A320s for delivery now. The last in the current order were used to establish the Belfast base and all that remains are unconverted options. That presumably means no expansion in Cork or Dublin for quite a while now.

EI fleet with orders:

http://www.jethros.i12.com/fleets/fl...aer_lingus.htm

I think that confirms what I was saying that there are only two A320s on order, which are the two heading for Belfast.

There is this line at the bottom though

Anyone know the time period between exercising an option and actually seeing the aircraft turn up?

840,

EI seems to do deals for pairs of aircraft at a time, unlike other carriers who place mega orders!

I dont know about any options being exercised though, I assume they would not get any aircraft before 2009 at this stage, unless there are some sort of purchase options to be converted by the end of the year for delivery from mid-late 2008. I dont think there will be any short haul growth outside of BFS this year, any a/c for summer 2008 would need to be ordered by now, unless it is part of those options whihich they may be in the process of firming up.

Overall, I think EI will look to get that base right first, then take A330s from 2009, how quickly they would be able to absorb 10 more A320s is questionable, but I dont think EI will base another a/c at ORK untill a substantial order for aircraft is made.

Brian.

Jet 2..summer 08 flight Cork - Newcastle goes up to Daily frequency

Well, that is good news. Jet2 have been building up their presence nicely on the NCL route nicely over the last year or so.

Think what Jet2 might be able to do if they based an aeroplane at Cork! Hint, hint! ;)

Cork had one of those rare events last night - an inbound diversion from Dublin when the FR1977 from Riga arrived due fog in Dublin. Always nice to get one coming our way.

Not to be outdone, of course, Shannon has today been the recepient of no less than four consecutive days of Flyglobespan diversions from either Boston or New York originally bound for Knock. Nice little total there for snn when it comes to overall pax numbers. Time for Knock to get a CATII ILS as otherwise they will be haemorraging traffic away to 'Th'other place' and I am sure Knock can ill afford that arrangment.

I wonder did FR provide coach transfers from Cork-Dublin or did they just land the plane at Cork and tell passengers to find their own way to Dublin. I'm surprised they'd divert to Cork, over 4 hours drive from Dublin, especially given how late it was. I suppose Shannon and Belfast were probably already closed for the night but Cork was still open waiting for the Centralwings flight from Krakow.

Shannon is open all night. Coincidentally we had our own Centralwings flight from, Katowice last night, delayed by 9hours and didnt arrive until 0900 this morning..

Rumours of further expansion by Aerlingus at Cork notwithstanding the shortage of new aircraft,

Perhaps a few W patterns or else move an aircraft from Dublin. One things for sure, they can't squeeze any more daytime flying out of the 4 based aircraft without chopping another route. They all now have very full schedules with the Summer 08 schedule showing at least 3 round trips per day for each aircraft. Perhaps they could start nightime flights but I don't think they would be that popular with Irish travellers. I'd say the most likely option is a W pattern, either on an existing route to free up a Cork based aircraft or on a new route. Or could there be the possibility that EI might lease in an A320/1 until they get new planes?
Any ideas on new routes? I'd say resurrecting Milan is a possibility. Does anyone know how it was doing the last time EI operated the route? Bordeaux or Toulouse could be another possibility and bordeaux would have a flight time of less than two hours which would make operating a W pattern from Dublin quite straightforward.

I nearly forgot to mention but on last Thursday afternoon Cork had the rarity of an Aer Lingus A321 in the circuit for a while. She was doing practice CATIIs to 17. Guess it might have been something to do with the reinstatement of the A321for the Heathrow bound Cork originating flights for the winter. Encouraging to see EI staying fully up to date with the requirements for low viz operations etc at Cork. There is a long winter ahead of us at Cork!

ORK-VCE/GVA/LIN/CPH and RIX would all be high on the possible EI route kist frin ORK IMO.

Im heading down to ORK flying DUB-ORK with FR next week really looking forward to seeing the new terminal.

Does anyone know which A321 Cork is getting? Or will different aircraft rotate between Cork and Dublin?

No, ORK will get whatever A321 ops decides to send, and it will rotate periodically, I THHINK this happens about once a month, or as non-line work becomes due. Im actualy surprised they have based an A321 at ORK, as EI maintenance were quite against it, from what I understand, due to differences between the aircraft, hence why ORK initially got the old SNN timetable for the winter, which was hurridly reinsated when the business communit had a canary. Ineresting to see ORK can get the work done effectively wothout street protests!
Hmmm, I would love to see where the extra capacity will come from, unless an aircraft W's? ALternaitvely some juggling of the use of the LHR originating flight could free up an extra daily rotation to somewhere. Either way EI has already reduced frequencues on a few routes for S2008.

Is WAW not operating next summer? Its not on the timetable on ei.com?

Brian.

Its being axed in February, probably as a result of Centralwings entering the Cork-Warsaw route in direct competition with EI. Rome is to take Warsaw's place in the summer timetable operating MWFS while Malaga is getting Romes TTS rotations to operate daily.

Perhpas the growth will be a TA route?

Its pretty easy to see the writing on the wall for SNN and EI....

Brian.

EI
 

Rumours at Cork are focusing on ORK-JFK possibly via BFS. I must say I'm somewhat sceptical as these have surfaced regularly in the past and have amounted to nothing.

The question for Aerlingus is whether yields on SNN-JFK would suffer if ORK gets its own flight. On the other hand operating ORK-JFK would ensure that EI would win over most of the pax that fly with DL and CO from the Cork catchment area including the high yield business traffic.

Difficult to see all three carriers serving New York from Shannon.


There also major doubts as to whether Shannon-Boston will continue to be viable once the direct Dublin service becomes established,