I think it's a gonner to be honest, Virgin Connect is going to be mostly about connecting to their hubs, unless other more peripheral routes are especially profitable they don't stand a chance.

Could easily see the likes of Loganair taking on the route in a year or two.

That begs the question; what advantages does the Connect tie-up bring to BE and VS apart from code-sharing arrangements?

806,000 passengers used Ireland West in 2019, an increase of 4.5% on 2018. That's the fourth consecutive year of growth at the airport and the first time they have exceeded 800,000 passengers in a year.

What routes preform the best to increase passengers numbers?

A380 Inbound
 

https://www.flightradar24.com/AFR373S/23ed422b

Should be a spectacular sight, shame about the fate of the aircraft.

Flybe ...
 

We patiently wait to see what happens with Flybe. In the case of NOC, 3 routes could be impacted; BHX, MAN & EDI.

​​​​​​BHX & MAN have been very long standing and sustained 737 operations at times inn the past. Is Ryanair likely to pick these routes up and would Loganair look at EDI?

​​​​​​Hopefully the management team have looked at possibility....

It's certainly a major concern for Knock.

FlyBe were responsible for 14% of all passengers at the airport in 2018. Only Belfast City is worse affected in Ireland as a whole, while south of the border, Dublin (1%), Cork (0.4%), Shannon (0%) and Kerry (0%) will see very little impact.

It could be an issue to attract in another carrier, with Ryanair flying to Liverpool and East Midlands, and Edinburgh the most marginal of the three. There aren't many carriers around these islands with the right equipment for the routes either.

A best bet may be Stobart/Aer Lingus Regional, but that would imply plenty of Ws, unless they could be persuaded to actually base an aircraft in Knock. At the moment, they have 5 aircraft dedicated to FlyBe and the wet-leased ATR72 could probably be pretty quickly repurposed.

Stobart Air have EDI based aircraft as of this summer - one ATR for Aer Lingus and also one E190 operating for Flybe. It is perhaps not beyond the bounds of reality that they'd consider Edinburgh-Knock?

This is not going to be a great year for knock if they don’t get the lost flybe routes replaced. I see Loganair have announced today that they are taking over some of the flybe routes but edinburgh knock not included ☹️ Hopefully ryanair will take manchester and Birmingham maybe Aer Lingus might be in the mix . Anyway hopefully something is announced shortly

The last few posts on this thread really have a written in a different era feel about them now, probably because they were written in a different era I suppose.

It almost feels strange to be posting about new, or at least reinstated, routes at the moment but very interesting to see that Ryanair are provisionally going to take on the NOC-MAN and NOC-EDI routes from the beginning of September.

There's obviously a real possibility that these dates get pushed back depending on how things go over the summer and if the South African variant of Covid takes hold in these parts I think we can forget about much air traffic from Knock at all in 2021, but even then it's good to see that the airport have been working on filling the gap left by Flybe and, whenever things can get back to some kind of normal, Ryanair are looking to take on these two routes.

Some rare good news. Hope all of the currently inactive staff at Knock are doing OK and we'll see most of them back at the airport when it reopens.

Can somebody resident in Eire update us on the latest mood music emerging from the Dail with regard to allowing unrestricted visits from across the water to resume? Any timescale? Thanks!

Not any time soon I'm afraid. Ireland is a long way behind the UK in terms of vaccinations and, although that gap should close in the next couple of months, there is little appetite to accommodate overseas visitors for the next few months at least.

Of course, the sea crossing between GB and NI is still open, as is the land border between NI and ROI, so any restrictions on arrivals from the UK can only have a limited effect on Covid cases as there is an open route between the two jurisdictions. The best case scenario would be a UK and Ireland wide joint effort later in the year that sees free movement right across the common travel area. I see little prospect of free movement into Ireland from beyond GB anytime soon.

Thanks for the update.

NOC - LPL is down for re-starting in May so I see.

Good to see FR network bookable (for now), and replacing 2 BE routes only BHX absent. Frequencies will take time.
LGW remains in EI system though no clarity on their plans.

Only other activity over last few months has been the Coast Guard and at Eirtrade Aviation. They have completed the first A380 parting out and continue to receive A320s, latest VT-IHL IndGo arrived from Istanbul last week. Eirtrade also received planning permission to start work on the new wide-body hangar and apron expansion.

Another IndiGo 320 arrived yesterday, IHK from memory.