en2r your notions differ from reality.

GSM have not pulled out of Shannon. Yes, before you say it Shannon flights have not yet been loaded. Delta have made firm commitments also for the future, as have Continental.


It would not surprise me what EI would do at this stage.

GSM appear to have announced all Summer 2008 flights now. Shannon is not due to be served

I'm afraid you're wrong fivejulliet. Airhumberside is right. All Summer 08 flights are on sale including flights from Dublin. Toronto now operates non stop from Dublin. It does not call at Shannon.

EI Rome-Cork
 

Does anyone know why it says on the Aer Lingus website that this mornings flight from Rome to Cork is being diverted to Dublin, despite the fact that it is still another hour until it is scheduled to land at Cork. It seems strange to divert an hour before landing, especially when everything else seems to be landing at Cork. The plane is even scheduled to return to Cork after just 40 minutes on the ground in Dublin. Change of plane?

the DUB-FCO flight was combined with the ORK-FCO flight

The combined flight seems to be due to Italian ATC strikes. I think the DUB pax were already delayed, so the flight went via DUB as a compromise to both.

Brian.

Heard that the new covered walkways are going up at last at Cork around stands 3 and 4 and that a new yet taller fence will also replace the current ones that have a white screen. Guess that is the price of progress. Now, if only a few more airbridges could be sorted out to provide company for the sole one now in service as it is now seems to be generally accepted that EI are more than happy to use them and while you are at it why not about an meagre extra 500 feet more onto the runway length. Not much to ask for is it bearing in mind the favours shown to Shannon for so long.

Was talking with someone who was flying up to Dublin on the first Ryanair to Dublin on Friday morning and they think they heard the load being mentioned was 160 pax. In isolation it is hard to know if it means anything but still it seems like it was a pretty strong load. This has got to be hurting RE a little? Wonder if the chances of RE getting jets of some kind are anyway closer and some sort of regularised interlining with EI can be looked at again or might it be like the the snn-lhr situation in that most of the DUB bound pax from Cork terminate their journey in Dublin? That would be interesting to know.

Ryanair loads do seem to be improving on the Cork-Dublin route. A few weeks ago I travelled up on the first morning flight, the 7.40 and it had a load of about 170 pax. I travelled back down on the 18.20 flight and it had a load of 134 pax. You do have to bear in mind though that Ryanair virtually gave away most of the seats, I got mine for €17.98 return including everything, booking just less than 2 weeks ahead. The airport charges alone probably cost Ryanair more than this! I know other people on the flight who got them for 1c each way all inclusive in one of Ryanair's giveaway sales! If they do drive Aer Arann off the route I can see them doing a Gatwick on it by reducing frequency and increasing fares.

The ting about FR fares though is they fluctuate wildly. On routes where they have a monopoly the fares are a good bit higher than where they dont for comparable flights. e.g. DUB-MAN and DUB-LBA. MAN tends to be that bit cheaper, while LBA fares command a premium - more like what you might pay for EI out of MAN, roughly. But this is the real world.
Also FR give seats away for a song on a lot of flights, Ive bought a MAN-DUB for Jan 3, to connect onwards with LX. £12.50 return please. My train fare to MAN will be more than that!
Brian.

I wonder are Ryanair taking passengers from Aer Arann or Irish Rail.

Although, there has been new rolling stock and increased frequency, the train service has got slower yet again and in the past year has suffered serious punctuality problems because of engineering works in Kildare. Maybe people have had enough of that.

I know I was someone who would have always used the train in preference to flying to Dublin, but with my last few experiences, I might reassess that.

Not too much evidence of striking DUB-ORK demand here - looks as though with the exception of a bit of late-booking traffic there are plenty of seats at low fares, on FR anyway.

Interesting website there, Cyrano. You learn something new everyday.

Looks like the Cork based Aer Lingus A321 will go to Warsaw this evening once the all ready late arriving EI715 from LHR lands in a few minutes time as an A320 is doing the outbound EI722 to Heathrow.

You can imagine that Warsaw will pick up for the Christmas and warrant an odd A321 flight but today might be still a bit early to fill 200 plus seats!

The switching of aircraft is probably a result of trying to minimise the delays that have been caused by the weather at Heathrow. Flights have been running late since Saturday. Yesterday they cancelled the last rotation EI724/725 since they were so far behind. The EI723 finally arriving into Cork just before midnight, almost 4 and a half hours later than its scheduled 19.25 arrival.

The A321 went to agp this evening, again this was to min delays due to an aircraft change with the lhr rotations.All caused by the power failure this am at dub and as a result dub based pilots unable to get out of dub on the 154

Yep, I got that wrong - the A321 went off to Malaga and not Warsaw in the end. The Cork A321 would have looked very smart parked up to the Malaga airbridge. Cant beat Espana!

I nearly choked on my chocolate biscuit while ago watching the telly waiting for The Angelus to start before the 6 pm news on De Budget when in the last ad before the first 'Bong' there was an animated cartoon type ad for, wait for it, Christmas in Cork 2007 to encourage the nation to come to Cork for some Christmas revelery etc! One of the animated graphics was of the new terminal above at Cork!

Might help fill a few more Ryanair seats with Jackeens coming down to visit Da Real Capital for a sense of atmostphere.

More creative than normal for Cork so credit where credit is due!:D

Cant help feeling that I am being a nuisance posting three consecutive posts but there has been some developments up above at the house on the hill at Cork. Good news too. The Latvian crowd with the A320s, LAT, are doing a few Santa Claus flights to RVN on 13th & 15th December operating via Dublin so along with the all ready noted Santy flights by XL, Monarch and First Choice flights they are all a nice boost to the Cork business coming to the end of the year.

However, it gets even better - the aforementioned LAT are operating Cork's first ever flight to the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh on St Stephen's Day, 26th December returning a week later on 2nd January, 2008. This is great news for Cork to have such a charter to such a prestigious resort. I wish I was going. Yes, sure, it is for now just a one off but it is a very welcome development none the less. Even one flight is a positive beginning.

This is why I feel it would have been so significant if even just one of the Slattery travel agent flights by Ryan International 757 to New York operated ex Cork a few years back. The precedent would have been set and away we go. It was not to be though and the opportunity was lost. A shame.

Its good to see a wider range of flights from ORK. I get the impression, and corret me if I am wrong, but the tour operators are not exactly being too innovative ex ORK. New destinations like Egypt, Morocco, Azores, etc dont seem to be introduced. Sure there is plenty of choice for "Ballymun in the sun" and the 6th year holidays, but after that things are a bit thin on the ground.

The operators might say, "there is no demand" - but I'd put it to you that the agents like selling whats in the brochures. The thought of tailor-made makes most agents have a stroke.... "ah thats not really possible - we've never done it before" The request - a star alliance RTW, and that was in one of the better known agents, with a sizable corporate travel reputation.

Brian.

Centralwings
 

Centralwings appear to have loaded their Summer 08 Schedule from Ireland

3 per week from Cork to Krakow
No flights for Wroclaw and Warsaw

No flights from Shannon

The Summer schedules are being loaded gradually. No flights are currently for sale from Wroclaw, and most of the Warsaw flights have not been loaded yet. Whatever about Wroclaw, I can't see them pulling off Warsaw when they've just driven Aer Lingus off the route