NEW ROUTE - Cork-Brest
 

New route from Aer Arann. Cork-Brest in Brittany twice weekly (Wednesday and Saturday) starting May 17th. Also Lorient and Nantes are both to increase to 3 weekly (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays). There will be a 50% increase in the number of flights from Cork-France next summer with 21 flights weekly vs. 14 per week last summer. The 21 being Paris-CDG 7 weekly(EI), Nice 3 weekly(EI), Carcassonne 3 weekly(FR), Lorient 3 weekly(RE), Nantes 3 weekly(RE) and Brest 2 weekly(RE). I think Brittany ferries will be the ones who will suffer next summer. Its great to see Brest return, it was offered as a charter up to a few years ago.

Tom, I dont think we can allege this conspiracy against ORK forever. ORK has to get on and do its own thing.

ORK needs to get he debt sorted out. Until such time as it does I don't think any dramatic route announcements will be made. But SNN is not stopping the crowd at ORK getting their own house in order. The conspiracy is really getting a bit old now. Did it ever occur that people might like to know where their friends/family were ending up, and not a part of a big conspiracy against ORK.

Brian.

Cork debt
 

Problem is that there are several agendas at work in relation to the debt. Zero debt is not going to happen and it's simply being used as a ploy by those who do not want Cork to become an independent company for their own reasons.

The board are split in relation to the debt issue and it may take untill 2009 when a new board will be appointed to sort things out.

I'm not sure if this issue is really holding back Cork. There are compelling reasons for not offering Ryanair a Shannon type deal and driving all others out. Aerlingus simply doesn't have enough aircraft to expand at Cork and the overseas carriers are simply extremely cautious about expanding at an airport that is an Aerlingus and Ryanair base.

I would doubt if Wizz, Central Wings, Sky Europe, Jet 2, Air South West and BMI baby would stay around if EI and FR really took them on. Malev and CSA have already fled as have several foreign operators from Dublin.

I agree with Ryan2000.

In fact, if you were to offer conspiracy theories, the DAA would be the most likely villain, not the SAA. They've been dragging their heels on separation for Shannon and Cork, and as we saw from the EI LHR fiasco, the DAA are not playing on the same team as the SAA (or presumably the CAA).

Aer Arann
 

Any comments on Aer Arann's recent announcements

Looks like they are reducing their presence in Cork and basing two aircraft overnight.

Would think that Waterford-Amsterdam; Faro and Malaga will give Aer Lingus competition in the Munster market.

Waterford-Amsterdam is doomed to failure. Without a codeshare and interlining agreement they won't have the pax to make a profit. Over half the passengers on ORK-AMS are connecting out of Amsterdam and few of the remainder will find Waterford more convenient.

Malaga and Faro ran last year from Waterford anyway. I'd say they'll make a good go of those routes in the summer months. Malaga can probably take what passengers are lost (remember that many of the passengers will originate in Galway and significant numbers of others would have flown from Dublin). Faro is probably dodgiest of the three route as Aer Lingus have showed tenuous committment to it up to now.

As for Aer Arann's strategy out of Cork. We'll have to see with that. I'm sure they are well aware that a number of their routes would be vulnerable to competition. I guess EDI is the most threatened with BHD and CWL other ones where they could be driven off the route.

The only thing is that with Aer Arann they have a habit of performing complete U-turns on their strategy, as we've seen with their continual cutting and adding of flights on the Dublin route, the chopping and changing of their route structure in Galway and the farce that was the Lille base.

I think the reduction was to do with a number of ATR 42s leaving the fleet (I think 2 or 3 left). There hasn't really been much of a reduction in capacity since Edinburgh is now operated by a Galway based aircraft and Cardiff is operated by a Dublin aircraft both on W patterns from the UK bases. From the timetables Cork is to get the third aircraft back for the Summer

I'd have to agree. There simply isn't enough point to point traffic from Waterford to support the route, especially when theres a twice daily KLM codeshare service 2 hours down the road. Also for business travellers, Aer Lingus's Cork service allows a day return, something not possible from Waterford.
As for Malaga, its an extremely strong service with daily flight from Cork by Aer Lingus this summer on top of the charter flights. I don't think it will really effect Cork since the Waterford service operated last summer yet I heard numbers on Cork-Malaga increased.

Nantes, Lorient & Brest from Cork during the summer have got to be winners and in both directions for that matter. Ideal route lengths for the ATRs. If it was up to me I would even try to squeeze in a three weekly to Brussels or Charleroi - the success of the Brussels Airlines flights of a few summers ago shows it can be done so if there any capacity lying around for either the ATR72-500s or the BAe146 it might be a consideration for RE? Of course, RE management may have other fish to fry and maybe the tie up with EI for the longhaul flights ex DUB might be the way to hang on market share on the Dublin route? Hope it works out well for them at RE.

Guess we must not let the day pass without remarking on the departure of the last Malev flight to Budapest from Cork this morning. Last night's inbound MA658 was operated by a 737-800 and in the last week or so there have been a mix of the bigger 737-700 and 737-800 on the route. What an end -adding insult to injury as the loads must have been fairly strong in recent days. A good route to a prominent hub gone - what a balls. Depending on connections at a fine hub like Amsterdam is one thing but having Cork originating pax having to plod through dumps like Dublin and Heathrow not to mention the sham sterility of Stansted is a step too low and in my view Cork is trying hard to ape a lot of the latter more and more.

How many of you noticed the full page CAA ad in the recent Ryanair inflight magazine? It is that overall red thing about Cork Airport Going Places. One place less to go now of course as and from today but worth a few marks for effort. Need a lot more of that kind of thing - that is something Cork can take note of from the snn crowd - Cork and snn all together as one happy family under the benevolent stewardship off the all knowing and all caring Dublin Airport Authority.

My @ss! Is it no wonder Cork has no transatlantic flight to it's name?

I suppose RE are a small airline and make decisions pretty quickly, as and when they need to. ORK-LBA frequency hops all over the place, it was 4x weekly for the summer, then daily for the winter schedule, in Feb it goes down to 5x weekly once more, and comes back to daily from June. Not very convenient really, but probably better for RE overall.

I also think there are more opportunities for Aer Arann out of Cork to destinations such as Derry, Brussels and either La Rochelle or Bordeaux.
Once they implement the interline agreement with Aer Lingus on the Cork to Dublin route, it will really help them grow passenger numbers on the route in competition with Ryanair.

To say its doomed to failure is a bit harsh. The UK loco's U2/LS etc, happily serve AMS from the various British regionals without any codeshare or interlining baggage to weigh them down.In any case being split with GWY there are only say, 50 seats to fill from each airport...not a unfathomable task. From experience, for such a short flight, Shamrock ORK-AMS fares verge on the rediculous at the best of times, particularly at weekends.I'm sure many O and D pax will find the new services from GWY and WAT much needed.

Maybe the leesiders could learn a thing or thing from the management of GWY and WAT in attracting new routes and move on from the DAA conspiracies. Its getting a bit tired now.

But the British regionals have much bigger catchment areas. Waterford city has less than 50,000 people living there.
The reason fares are so expensive is because of the high charges at Amsterdam. The taxes and charges alone on a return flight from Cork amount to over €63. As for fares from Waterford and Galway being cheaper, fares from both airports to Amsterdam start at €80 one way. Fares from Cork-Amsterdam start at €29 one way!

If you look at random weekends in july for example.for may occasions when baggage is included, RE begins to look very competitive!

And much bigger competiton on the AMS runs. Galway folk are currently faced with a 120mile journey to Dublin to connect with AMS flights

You have to remember that the passengers on ORK-AMS fall into four categories - inbound point-to-point, outbound point-to-point, inbound connecting and outbound connecting. Now, if you lose the connecting you're left with the point-to-points.

Open one of the free-sheets like Spits or Metro in Holland and you'll often see ads for Aer Lingus. Also, they have long standing relationships with many Dutch and German tour operators who bulk-book onto the flights. How many Amsterdam-originating passengers will be aware of never mind booking the Aer Arann/Nex Aviation flights?

Even with a much smaller aircraft, I doubt you could make ORK-AMS point-to-point viable. With no service from Shannon, you can credibly say that Cork's hinterland for the flight is Cork, Kerry and Limerick. Those three counties have a combined population almost three times what you'll see in Waterford, Wexford and Kilkenny combined. While there will also be Galway-originating traffic the combined, you can add in the populations of Galway, Mayo and Clare and still not reach the total population of the three counties. And all that's before you factor in people from the Waterford and Galway hinterlands choosing to fly from Dublin or to a lesser extent Cork because of the better timetables offered.

Admittedly, for Aer Arann, this is a no-brainer. They take a cut of the money while Nex Aviation take the risk.

New Aerarann route:

Cork - La Rochelle :ok:

Once weekly (Saturdays).

Got to hand it to Aer Arann - they are willing to change things around a lot. Helps them to keep FR/EI off their tail. Hard to see FR chase them into every nook and cranny of France?

Nice one La Rochelle.

Thats great news, another new French route. This means we'll have 7 French destinations this summer versus 4 last year. I think Brittany Ferreis will really start to suffer this year on the Cork-Brittany ferry route. Why would you want to spend 14 hours on a ferry and then maybe have to drive for a few hours when there are now quite a selection of direct French destinations to choose from.

Because you can easily bring back 100 bottles of wine :E

LHR
 

Any noticeable increase in pax on ORK-LHR now that SNN-LHR has ceased?

Presume A321 was put on the route in anticipation of increase.

The A321 has been on the ORK-LHR for at least the past 8-9 years if memory serves me, although when the competition on ORK-LON was at its fiercest with EZY/EIN AND RYR on the scene back in 2005 the A321 was replaced by the A320 for a time.