Aer Lingus are now a privatised company, the government should have no input into its workings.

Supply and Demand, Colm. The End.

It's not quite as simple as supply and demand as we all know airlines play other games like operating routes to keep potential competitors out of a market or not operating potentially profitable routes so as to guard yields at another airport.

In fact if it was simple supply and demand and prices were as high as suggested, you would expect supply to increase. That said, I have suspicions about the figures. I've never seen a €939 return flight to Munich, but pick the right set of dates... Because of the lower capacity out of Cork compared to Dublin, there will always be the potential for individual events to overwhelm that capacity on a certain date.

Nevertheless, making a fuss about something that is out of the hands of politics is a great way for a politician to make some headlines without having to actually do anything.

Aer-Lingus are trying everything to get all passengers on tuesday 24th oct they operated the LAST tue evening flight to AMS forcing passengers to use Dublin and the XXXXXX BUS

Corks service to Amsterdam has lost alot of yield lately, hence they made a commercial decision to cull the Tuesday evening flight for the winter It's not that concerning, however this plentiful attitude of everyone is against Cork really doesn't achieve anything and is completely detached from reality.

Dublin now has 3 carriers, operating 12-13 (I think) daily flights to AMS, more than doubled compared to what it was previous to the arrival of Ryanair and KLM to the route. As a result, this dilutes yields in AMS routes in BFS, ORK and DUB.

I'd also like to point out EI would achieve very little from "forcing" Cork passengers to Dublin, as it's very possible many will choose to fly with a competing airline.

Pricing
 

I don’t think this is a case of ‘they Are against Cork’ this is more a case of, EI are not watching price structures in Cork, nor is this down to supply and demand!

It is common practice to increase price structures in one area to try and push customers in another, meaning, supply and demand does come into it, but not in a traditional way! It looks like Cork prices on many routes are artificially inflated, to encourage bookings in a more need area! This is normal in the travel industry and is wide spread. To simplify, they have a lot more capacity out of Dublin to fill, and not as much from Cork, so keep prices up in Cork to fill where the larger capacity is!

It’s not a case of let’s hurt Cork, it’s a case of protecting Dublin to keep themselves competitive, Cork pricing is collateral damage.

Pushing them to other airline isn't what they'd like to do, hence the suggestion that they're reducing capacity due to this doesn't make sense.

However, I've no doubt that certain airlines (INC EI) do this in order to keep capacity at their hub airports. They're commercial businesses and it makes commercial sense.

EI are trying to maximize profits as much as possible especaily where they have zero competition and that affects “guests” from Knock, Shannon, Cork and to a lesser extent Belfast. They have total disregard for loyal frequent flyers as is evident with Aer Club. Never in my life have I ever heard of an airline loosing so many checkin bags and still fail to deliver after 6 weeks citing weather as an issue. Their customer service is via tweeter or Facebook and only manned certain hours and not weekends. There are no phone numbers easily accessible from their website when they leave you in the sh1t to try and get a hand out. Staff on the planes are decent enough but again when things fail they can’t assist. Aircraft are only cleaned nightly so if someone soils on your seat on the previous flight you have to to sit on the same crap. Unfortunately I have to fly this shower about 20 times a year and will often drive to Dublin to take a connecting flight rather than a direct flight with them.

Nope, still operating and bookable for the entire winter season.

and then gone

It ran twice weekly during summer schedule just gone

In addition to the Air France announcement, which can hopefully get merged into this thread, it looks like Swiss have extended their season further. Flights are from 9 May to 26 October.

I was a touch surprised by Air France. Although I had Hop! on as an airline Cork should be reaching out to, I had them more down for Nice or maybe Nantes than Paris. Hopefully it will be used. It should bring a bit of honesty to the Aer Lingus fares to Paris if nothing else.

Brilliant news from SWISS, it’s come a long way in just 2 years. I wonder if we might see a winter GVA from LX, maybe once a week on Sat/Sun? easyJet are the other big operator at GVA, but I don’t see than happening, after last time!

Interestingly there are a lot of EI CDG fares are to be had for €125 return. Matching AF. Quelle Suprise!

Passenger numbers up 5% for January

Cork Airport passenger numbers increase 5% in January

Seems quite a respectable performance considering there were substantial cancellations due to Storm Eleanor, Storm Fionn and one day of heavy fog. I can't recall what the weather was like in January 2017 though and being January, there may have been a number of cancellations that month.

Ryanair going year-round with Faro with 2 flights a week to operate throughout the Winter months. Other than a few extra seats (and I'm not sure if this is at the expense of capacity on another route), it's no major gain as Aer Lingus already operate this through the winter.

AF flights seem to be getting quite expensive, is that a sign that there has been a bit of take up I wonder.

840, Aer Lingus haven't operated to Faro in Winter for about 5/6 years. Looking at the timings its a Faro based Aircraft, appears no other capacity has been cut. So a positive addition to the winter schedule.

Newcastle
 

Newcastle does not appear to be bookable beyond October at the moment.
Does anyone know if this is flight is being axed or just not loaded? The timing are not great which probably doesn't help with the loads.

A bit early to be getting worked up, summer schedules are by no means set in stone.

I wouldn't be at all shocked if they are waiting to see if Newcastle Utd stay up or Middlesbrough come up.

Over Winter, the Premier League business they get on the Newcastle route is important in sustaining what is their most marginal route out of Cork.