Offering a Premier service on MCO is pointless, as you would rarely fill the cabin and leave with empty seats. Theres next to no J demand to MCO ex DUB. Selling the whole a/c as Y, and offering upgrades ensures EI can get as many Y fares onboard. If they manage to get 24 Y pax to pay the upgrade fee of E150, they already have E3600, which is about the price two J tickets would cost.

I was on an early morning AGP and VIE flight, and there was a about 12-15 pax who had come from ORD/BOS/JFK flights. Its good now that EI104 from JFK arrives at 05.10am, EI136 from BOS arrives at 5.30am and EI122 arrives from ORD at 5.50am, meaning those pax can connect to most services ex DUB

Any news on the new aer lingus uk base? My understanding is that it is between bhx and bhd which one is more likely to get it?

Personally, my money was on BHX, however with EZY now showing an interest in BHX who knows

Ei @bhx/bfs
 

I personally dont think that Easyjet flying into BHX will have any bearing on the decision by Aer Lingus as to which airport to choose. Easyjet Switzerland will operate the routes and as far as I can see the two companies are quite separate, so unlikely base for easyjet in BHX.

BFS,I believe is the preference of the EI management, and they are only waiting until the financials stack up. I dont think that we will have to wait much longer. Many have made the point that Birmingham has way more potential in terms of population size, this may be true but there are alot of airports in the region and much more competition.

An awful lot of people from NI flying are using Dublin for various reasons 1.Price 2.Frequency 3. Availability etc. The level of price offers and discounting simply is way more available from Dublin and the NI tourist market is going to really take off in the current political climate, I can see Aer Lingus being on this idea.

As for Ryanair coming to BHD I think at this stage its scare tactics for Dermot Mannion to chew on. I thought we would have heard something last week at the AGM.

When asked what was his feelings about Ryanair , Dermot Mannion said he respected that Ryanair was a major shareholder and we will strive to give them good return and shareholder value like any of our shareholders. Does anyone think this an attempt at warming relations between the two carriers???

EI-BUD

I don't think so; I think it's just an effort - successful and dignified - to reflect EI's position. I don't think it's inaccurate; EI should have respect for FR, but I wonder if - as DM says - that is reciprocated. EI should not allow itself to get drawn into a war of words with FR and DM can be credited for not doing so (although somehow I doubt if he'd come out the winner even if he did!)

Just a quick question, if I may, about EI's transatlantic and long haul plans; it now appears, according to reports I've seen elsewhere, that EI is NOT planning to add any long haul acft next year. This seems to conflict with earlier comments (by Enda Corneille, for example), that EI is planning to add two more cities next year. Of course, it's not impossible, but assuming they'll want to add capacity to the soon to be launched new routes, it doesn't leave a lot of capacity to share around.

Also, in relation to the new (2009+) A330s, it seems that most of these are for replacement of existing capacity - most of which will eventually go on US routes; it seems to me that the possibility of far eastern routes, to which EI refers every so often - is being pushed further and further down the road.

Aer Lingus to start Gatwick Service
 

Good news I think as it gives BA a reason to pull out of Ireland again !
Oddly enough this is at least the third time Aer Lingus have operated this route. Remember they pulled it when they sold the 146s.

I wonder how they were able to source that many slots, I've heard morning slots in particular are like golddust. The morning flight should prove popular though. Ryanair's first flight doesn't leave Dublin until 8am.

Aer Lingus LGW
 

Is the 4 x LGW-DUB because they are maybe going to reduce LHR
in order to free up slots for smoething else ?

Reducing LHR-DUB
 

@BCALBOY:

That's the only explanation that makes sense to me.

If there were no cutbacks elsewhere, this would represent an overnight capacity increase of about 10% of the entire Dublin - London market, which would be plain daft.

Interesting - and unexpected decision; didn't expect to see EI muscling in what was FR territory, although if BA pulls off DUB route, probably understandable.

Can't wait to see MO'L's reaction to this!

Maybe EI have inside info that BA are going to pull off Dublin-Gatwick. I don't think they would be launching the route without BA's consent since the Cork, Dublin and Shannon to Heathrow routes are heavily dependent on the BA codeshare and I don't think they would want to do anything to annoy Willie Walsh.

If they start pulling Heathrow routes, it'll cause chaos for connecting passengers and there is a fair percentage of people who connect through Heathrow to fly onwards with BA or others that they could lose. Unless..... They start routes to every european, african, asian, american and australian airports :p

Freeing up slots at Heathrow by diverting traffic to Gatwick?

Allows BFS - LHR or just sell them to a transatlantic operator? Or even crazier go transatlantic themselves?

When did they pull out of Gatwick?

Doesn't the Irish Minister for Transport have a veto on the usage of Heathrow slots? I couldn't really see the government agreeing to release then for transatlantic. However, they may be more minded to allow them to be used for flights to Belfast.

I think they pulled out 1994 and then again in 2002. I guess they're hoping for third time lucky

I don't know will Heathrow flights be cut, perhaps 1 or 2 out of the current 13 but I'd say that will be the very most and even that may not even happen. Lots of tranfer passengers use Heathrow to transfer onto longhaul services, there are a very limited number of longhaul services from Gatwick, not that many more longhaul destinations than there are from Dublin so Gatwick would be of limited use to those longhaul passengers. I think Ryanair and BA on Gatwick will be far more affected than EI on Heathrow

If you look at the timings they compliment BAs rather than compete

Head to head with Ryanair on a London route. This could be an interesting fares war if Ryanair react.

Gatwick
 

Yes will be a very interesting one, MOL will not be impressed with this one that is for sure.

They will be using the South terminal as well by the looks of things, the North is far far nicer in my opinion