Attack may end Dubai Deal

[Bluehair]

(quoted from Sunday Business Post 12th Aug)

"The proposed direct flight connection between Dublin and Dubai may be a casualty of the bomb attack on Colombo airport by the Tamil Tigers.
Negotiations between Aer Rianta and Emirates Airways were 'in an advanced state' when the separatists attacked Colombo airport with mortars last month, destroying half of the Sri Lankan Airlines fleet.
Sri Lankan Airlines has called on part-owner Emirates to help replenish its fleet. It has now moved its hub to Dubai and Singapore as it tries to work out a schedule for its depleted fleet.
In the short term Emirates will not have the fleet capacity to expand its services to include new routes such as Dublin."

Anyone know how 'short-term' this might be?

[CargoOne]

considering Sri Lanka is not in position to replace destroyed birds (several interviews with Sri Lanka management), it can take may be one year or more.

[akerosid]

It might not be as bad as all that (as far as the DUB route is concerned); UL has 2 active A340s and 4 A330s, which given the fall-off in traffic and the fact that traffic is being limited to SIN and DXB, might be as much as it needs right now.

I don't know if EK would be well advised to put its own aircraft in CMB, both because of the higher insurance premiums and the fact that it could use the aircraft a lot more efficiently from DXB.

I don't think UL's load factors will be too high for quite a while to come.