Aer Lingus fleet replacement

[hobie]

Much of the justification for Privatization or Management buy-out of Aer Lingus seems to be due to a need for EI's Transatlantic fleet to be replaced ......

Aer Lingus's Transatlantic fleet i.e. 6 aircraft (all 330's)

my question is ...... why?

the oldest aircraft .... 4 craft delivered in 1994?
one more in 1995
and the remaining one arrived 1999

is it age/condition or up-grading to more modern/larger craft that is behind the need for replacement?

[Spearing Britney]

It's the Irish runways, like the roads they are full of potholes - takes it toll on the planes... :p

[alexban]

the money maybe...for the ones involved

[Vin Diesel]

Aer Lingus i believe are reviewing the transatlantic fleet with a medium to long term fleet strategy in mind. Now that does sound like management speak and in the 2003 annual report the paragraph concerning the fleet review is

"a review of the long haul fleet has commenced. The fleet consists of seven A330's at present. The review will seek to identify a medium to long term strategy having regard to the existing fleet and potential market opportunities."

At present Aer Lingus transatlantic routes are governed by a bilateral agreement meaning they can only operate to Boston, NYC JFK, Chicago, Washington(Baltimore) which i believe is going to be dropped soon, and also LAX .

In the annual report Willie Walsh when talking about the transatlantic operation, which accounts for 38% of 2003 scheduled revenue, talks about how they are constrained by the existing bilateral agreement which limits them to five destinations and the requirement for equal services to and from Shannon and Dublin. "We are confident that with the opening up of this market that we could grow our operation significantly to provide additional low fare capacity... on new and existing routes."

He also talks of "opportunities to grow our long haul operations to the East and South out of Ireland. In this regard we have initiated a review of our long haul fleet strategy."

I've heard it mentioned before that Aer Lingus would like to get involved in a route out of Dublin to the East, as a leg of a Ireland to Australia operation. I suppose Kuala Lumpur or similar would be a destination market to the East that he could be referring to, and I heard mentions of a South African flight before.

I think therefore that the fleet review has an eye on new US destinations when the existing bilateral expires, is replaced or is there an open skies policy going to come into existence? Basically in my opinion, based purely on what i read in the annual report, they are looking at where they see demand to be in the medium to longer term, i suppose 5+ years, and which aircraft would be most appropriate for those routes and passenger loads which they forecast.

I don't envy anyone the task of trying to predict five years down the line, what routes passengers want, and how many passengers a new route would attract, and then having to commit huge financial resources based on that prediction.

Maybe they see growth in passenger numbers requiring larger aircraft, longer range etc?

I don't actually know how old the A330's are and whether they are approaching replacement age, but I think that the fleet review is geared towards passenger levels and an appropriate aircraft to satisfy that demand, hopefully profitably!

Just my two cents worth of course!

[neidin]

Aer Lingus will be very limited on routes and aircraft choice by the shortish runway at DUB. They have only 2637M. The SHANNON lobby mae sure that the last runway work at Dublin kept the runway shortish to hamper growth of long haul from Dublin. That was part of teh reason at the time for the unloved A330 to be used. EI were the ATOP's launch customer for A330. Conor McCarthy ex EI and ex FR was the genius on this.

Grwoth to AsiA will be very limited by this.

[Seat1APlease]

I think Aer Lingus have a real dilemma, in that they would like to become a low cost airline over much of their network, because they cannot afford their historical overheads, and this might well be the best solution, but the transatlantic business travellers are not going to pay full fare prices for low cost products.

Having two separate fleets is inefficient as US long haul aircraft tend to sit on the ground all day and short haul aircraft sit on the ground all night with poor aircraft integration efficiency.

Having an aircraft with the range for the shorter Eastern Seaboard routes, yet small enough for a daytime European service might help.

Code share and partnership might be another way forwards, just flying those core routes themselves which could be done efficiently, but until these decisions are announced it seems a little premature to commit to specific aircraft types.

[WHBM]

The Aer Lingus A330 fleet is mostly 10 years old, less for the A330-200s. As they are doubtless being depreciated in the accounts over 25 years, and the aircraft is still in production, there's a long time to go before any replacement is required.

I've always wondered why EI don't make use of the marginal time in the A330 programme (sectors like Boston to Dublin being only 6 hours) to put them on Heathrow flights during midday and offer mass market low fares. Wonder what the costs would be compared to the A321s. If there's disruption on the Heathrow route they always seem able to rustle up an A330 to consolidate a couple of flights.