It was the UKs decision to leave.

Obviously alot if effort to reg register a/c etc
Don't see why the should have too, anyway BA as you say can do

Because they'd have to pluck A/C and crew out of the EI mainline fleet, which gives you scheduling problems (see EI UK and their A330's). Can't see what any cunning IAG plan would gain them?

I believe it cost Aer Lingus around £100,000 to put each 330 on the British register.
At Belfast, they need only 1 320 for the current schedule.
With the additional cost of each pilot go through the CAA layers of bureaucracy to obtain a UK Licience and an Operators Conversion Course which means that they cannot fly an EI registered aircraft so new pilots are required when the aircraft is replaced for maintenance.
I’m sure that Aer Lingus have decided that the aircraft can make more money elsewhere.
its another own goal for Brexit where the only winners are the Caa’s coffers, not the consumers.

BHD LHR
Sad to see Aer Lingus having to axe BHD/LHR route. This had come into its own and was sustaining good loads in recent few years.

As I understand multiple solutions had been proposed, but the solutions proposed were not acceptable. There are no 320s on the Aer Lingus UK register and putting one into the register wasnt workable as no back up plane could viably have been put on the register to cover maintenance and tech issues. There were a myriad of crewing issues associated with Dublin based and contacted crews. Brexit hasn't been kind in some ways, this is an example.

BE have summer 2023 on sale. Might be interesting seeing BHX playing out with 4x daily, EIR 4x daily and EZY up to 5x daily from BFS, if of course all these flights actually operate!

BA A320 G-EUUC has been operating Aer Lingus' rotations to Heathrow on EUK callsign since 24 December. Significant? Don't know yet...

Its a wet lease because of the widely reported brexit issues. The route ends at the end of March.

The aircraft swop a couple times a week with the BA Mainline aircraft

#avgeeky note, the BA Shuttle callsigns have returned to the same format as the original 1990s for BFS, with SHT4* / 5*. Yeah, I am ancient.
4/5 BFS
6/7 GLA
8/9 EDI and later on
12/13 NCL
14/15 changed 18/19 ABZ
16/17 INV

You forgot SHT 2*/3* for MAN!

I refer you to my previous post, "I am ancient". 😅
Quite right, my bad!

Bring back the BMA6FP and 9XF :)

If this is correct, it’s begs the question about how this doesn’t affect Ryanair? Yes, Ryanair have UK entities, but virtually all of their UK based aircraft are EI regs. I cannot imagine those figures are correct unless FR know something other airlines don’t!

Exactly the same rules apply to Ryanair. The EI a/c are EU registered a/c operating flights between the EU and UK - the 'base' of the a/c is irrelevant. If you want to fly domestic routes in the UK or flights from the UK to countries outside the EU you need to be a UK airline.

None UK- EU must use Ryanair UK aircraft as must any domestic route - Basically Morocco and Norway . A few UK - Eire flights are also operated by Ryanair UK aircraft.

Almost all Eastern European routes use Buzz aircraft inbound to the UK.

Ryanair Uk May lease a small amount of EI registered capacity ( primarily from Manchester and Stansted ) on an adhoc basis - think there is a capacity limit but don’t have a citation handy.

However much of the UK operations are “scheduled inbound” for operational ( Brexit) reasons operated by Maltese and Irish aircraft ( none officially based ) alomg with Lauda aircraft based within the EU on a very close to the rules basis.

Easy have a more obvious split with three differing fleets for within the EU ( and some inbound to the UK) a UK fleet now fully under CAA rules, and a part ownership of Easyswiss allowing flights from Switzerland to The EU, UK, Israel and Morocco.

It is without doubt there has been a major impact (bureaucratic ,negative and certainly financial ) on the effective airline operations from and to the GBNI since existing the EU free sky area.

Does anyone know if easyJet have increased their operation in BHD for summer 23? They appear to have 4 flight a day most days of the week

I believe most routes going double daily on EZY

Yep. EZY trying to keep command of as much of the U.K. market from Belfast as possible by spliting ops between airports and plugging gaps, but FR now on 5 GB routes from BFS - and with fleet growth Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Luton etc set to come on stream too, so EZY will likely either have to nail their colours or get even more complicated about their Belfast flying.

EZY are fully committed to BFS in particular and the Belfast market in general. I wouldn't fancy the chances of FR lasting 2 year's even. The passengers here are very loyal to EZY, remember last time they ramped up capacity and stuck it out till FR buckled. The BHD operation is basically there to keep the competition off key routes like BRS, LPL.
I'm not the world's biggest fan of EZY but they've stuck loyal to Belfast, can't take that from them.

The issue for Ezy operating from both airports is that the service is compromised from both. This winter, for example, Ezy are offering 1 flight on a Saturday between Lpl and Bfs. I have used that service in previous years when there was 4/5 flights on a Saturday. Weekday services also reduced, the same has happened with the Lgw route. In fact, they have reduced Lpl to such an extent that I could see them providing an opening for Fr on that route. I know that Ezy has also said that they will limit flights this winter to limit losses, so that fares are driven up, but it seems to me that by operating to both airports, you end up with less than satisfactory results on routes to both airports.