Irish PSO Routes awarded

[beamwidth]

from RTE

http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0513/ryanair.html

REA retain most, however, WX get NOC, and more significantly FR get KIR.

PSO has been the main crutch for REA during these years of expansion, will they completely curtail their KIR operation now?

[TwinAisle]

I guess you mean KIR, not KER, unless Mr O'Leary has gone all longhaul on us...

:}

[beamwidth]

you'd never know with him:)

[Husky One]

giving O'leary a PSO route is like using an umuzzled rotweiler to guard your prize pedigree cat :hmm:

[virginblue]

Aer Arann will continue to operate services on routes linking Dublin with the regional airports in Galway, Derry,Sligo and Donegal. Cityjet will operate the service from Dublin to Ireland West Airport Knock


:confused: That's been Loganair until now, if I am not mistaken?

So Loganair drops out of the PSO system, Aer Arann gets a twice daily LDY instead of a daily NOC and Cityjet gets a daily NOC flight.

Did Cityjet apply for more PSO routes? NOC probably will only be a tag-on of one of the daily PAR or LCY flights from DUB. Cannot see WX basing a Dornier 328 at NOC just for an early morning hop to DUB and a late night return to the shrine... Probably more economic to do a bit of overkilling and dump one of the DUB-based Avros on the route.

[EI-BUD]

How does the PSO work? Does the airline get an agreed fee per year in total or is it per passenger who travels?

How frequently will Ryanair fly the Kerry flight? 3 daily or will it be 4?

It will be very interesting to see how the passenger levels will be improved on the route. And will there be a night stop?

And will this mean an end to Aer Arann's other operations at Kerry?

[en2r]

How frequently will Ryanair fly the Kerry flight? 3 daily or will it be 4?
3 daily
And will this mean an end to Aer Arann's other operations at Kerry?
I don't know. Manchester is currently operated by a Galway aircraft while Lorient is operated by a Cork based aircraft so the loss of the based aircraft won't have that much impact. Whether they'll want to continue with just 1 year round service and a Saturday summer only service is another matter entirely.

[EI-BUD]

Let wait and see the Ryanair publicity around this. MOL will probably be saying good bye to high fare Aer Arann on the Kerry/Dublin route and give a stack of seats away to lauch it.

Will Loganair keep on the Glasgow/Derry route since the competition from Ryanair in the market?

Kerry is a big loss for Aer Arann, this route usually gets a good crowd, and in my experience the fares are high enough so I would imagine it was a nice earner. Knock is not a big loss, and Derry wont be anything as busy in passenger numbers as Kerry.

[beamwidth]

Taken from the Dept of Transport site

PSO Route
Current Contract amount for 22/7/2007 - 21/07/2008

Donegal/Sligo
€5,403,422.00

Kerry
€3,008,433.00

Galway
€3,041,058.00

Knock/Derry
€4,287,719.00

Total
€15,740,632.00

Minister's Press Release here http://www.transport.ie/viewitem.asp?id=10608&lang=ENG&loc=2260

I think the Ryanair spin should be interesting, and will again highlight their abject hypocracy on all matters aviation related

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=feb&story=gen-en-290208

At a time when the Irish health services and schools are in a crisis, it is hard to justify €100m. in subsidies for a small, high cost regional airline. One can only imagine how many hospital beds, or how many Autism schools or Cystic Fibrosis centres could be built and run with these vast sums of money. Ryanair believes that its time that these PSO subsidies were ended, and this €100m. of taxpayers funds was better used to improve the health system, or the education facilities system in this country instead of lining the pockets of a few Aer Arann shareholders”.


Quality:rolleyes:

[Lord Lardy]

Thats if they do the route at all. I wouldn't be surprised if they itchy feet at the last minute. The Kerry route from my knowledge is not the most heavily subsidised on offer. So if you take it that say 50 of the seats on a typical sector are up for subsidy and the rest not then that would require a further 130 or so seats to be sold outside the defined regulations. I'm sure I read somewhere that the maximum you can charge for a ticket is 90 euros or something close to that. Coupled to that there should be no tax for a PSO route so the opportunity to hike on all sorts of stealth taxes won't be accepted.

Now come to the cost of operating the flight. If my memory serves me correctly, a turboprop operating that route would probably burn approximately 600kgs per flight. An aircraft like the 737 would burn in the region of 1500 kgs, perhaps even a couple of hundred kilos more. Operating three return flights a day would alone make the fuel burn per day to be in the region of of 9000 -10000kgs. I can't see how they will sell enough tickets on a daily basis to come anywhere close to breaking even. And of course that is assuming you fill the aircraft. Selling early morning coffee and tea won't subsidise the shortfall.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was all a stunt by Ryanair to test if they went in with a very low bid to see if it would be awarded to them or if it was all fixed in the first place. They obviously have their answer now so I can forsee a very quick retreat and pull out of the running. It's rare that Ryanair don't jump on the publicity bandwagon and claim a huge victory in winning the route. It's not so long ago that they had a half page advert in the Irish papers denouncing the amount of taxpayers money being spent on these routes. They seem to have now gone very quiet all of a sudden. Link to their own website donouning it here: Press Release (http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=feb&story=gen-en-290208)

I may be wrong. He may do a shannon-dublin on it and test the water. However, with all airlines tightening their belts I would find it strange. We'll wait and see.

[sawtooth]

The NOC Cityjet pair is interesting regarding aircraft utilisation. The Dornier aircraft are running Scottish routes at the moment, unlikely they would use the RJ unless the plan is to launch additional routes from NOC, Paris or another major euro hub for exmple.

[virginblue]

unlikely they would use the RJ unless the plan is to launch additional routes from NOC, Paris or another major euro hub for exmple.

Why do you think so? It certainly does not do harm if Cityjet simply uses an RJ that until now has a longish overnight layover at DUB for a short evening hop to NOC, overnight it there, return form there first thing in the morning to DUB from where it carries on with the usual PAR and LCY flights. Certainly more sensible than basing a Dornier 328 at NOC for a single daily rotation which would require Cityjet finding work for the aircraft to do three other daily non-sibsidised rotations.

BTW, did Cityjet apply for any other PSO routes?

[beamwidth]

Lardy,

It's rare that Ryanair don't jump on the publicity bandwagon and claim a huge victory in winning the route.

I'd tend to agree with you. Ryanair are TOO quiet about this.

I feel that its gonna be one of 2 banner headlines

1) XXth European Base at Kerry Intl

Ryanair today announces the opening of its xxth European base at KIR. Speaking today blah blah investment €xxx M blah blah low fares blah blah..... you get the picture

or

2) Ryanair helps hard pressed Irish taxpayers and says no to PSO for KIR

Ryanair today announces it will not take up the offer of KIR PSO , saving the Irish taxpayer € xx M over 3 years, but will operate a new KIR DUB service. Speaking today blah blah doing the route in their own way blah blah Aer Aran blah blah low fares blah blah

Anyone got a third option?

[eastern wiseguy]

Will Loganair keep on the Glasgow/Derry route since the competition from Ryanair in the market?


Nothing to do with PSO though I do wonder at the potential for two carriers goiing to the west coast of Scotland.

.

[akerosid]

I was just wondering about FR's response and the third option listed by Beamwidth above crossed my mind (looking both ways ;-)) ...

FR wouldn't have won this unless they applied for it; I doubt if the DoT would force them to take a subsidy, so the FR application is basically its way of driving a horse and coach through the whole PSO process.

Another issue is this: if FR DID decide to proceed with an operation under PSO rules, how would the Dept of Transport react if the company started giving away seats for nothing? I'm presuming that the PSO subsidy is on a per capita basis; if FR chooses to sell seats for less than the subsidy, is the DoT still compelled to pay? Maybe they'd try that, just for "devilment" ... Imagine the headline "Govt forces us to sell ticket at a higher price"?

[TwinAisle]

2) Ryanair helps hard pressed Irish taxpayers and says no to PSO for KIR


Beamwidth - brilliant! I would put money on someone at Ryanair planning to rub a Government nose in the manure over this.

Akeroskid - interesting thought - I think you have hit a nail on the head here. This could well drive a coach and four through PSO legislation, which, let's face it, gets abused all the time and needs a shake-up. And I can't think of anyone better placed to do it than Mr O'L. Good on him!

TA

[CorkEICK]

I would put money on someone at Ryanair planning to rub a Government nose in the manure over this


Remember the country has a new Taoiseach and we dont know yet if MO'L will continuue as he did in the past or will there be a change in the relationship with the new Taoiseach.

[MarkD]

The taxpayers won't be helped if FR don't take up the route, RE or one of the other bidders will step in. Remember Euroceltic? RE were quick to scoop that back up.

If I was an FR shareholder on the other hand, I wouldn't be happy that company staff were employed on the fools errand of bidding for a service then p!ssing off the Dept of Transport by refusing it in a smartalec fashion.

One more reason to do it - it might keep one of the aircraft busy that MOL is proposing to park...

[iwak]

Anyone know what time the cityjet flights will be operating at to and from knock. No mention on their website as yet. Just thinking maybe vlm will operate a rotterdam dublin schedule and then onto knock. Cant see them reduce capacity from lcy to dub with dornier considering slots are so scarce.

Any thoughts?

[840]

I wouldn't say it won't happen, but there are a few things that would seem to make it unlikely

-A Fokker 50 isn't that much bigger than a Dornier 328.
-Rotterdam to Dublin would take forever in a Fokker 50. You'd be faster taking the train to Amsterdam and flying with Aer Lingus on an A320
-If VLM were to use their BAe 146, CityJet may as well have operated the route.


If the extra seats on the Fokker 50 were really desirable, you could always see VLM doing an RTM-LCY-DUB-NOC-DUB-LCY-RTM sector, taking over one of the LCY-DUB sectors from CityJet. The individual flight segments would be shorter making more commerical sense in a Fokker 50.

[EI-BUD]

With the arrival of BA Cityflyer on DUB LCY, I would expect that at least one of the daily rotations on the route will be by smaller aircraft, as there will be huge over supply. So, if that were to happen then a F50(VLM) or a Scot (seems to be expected) 328 that does LCY/DUB/NOC evening and then next morning NOC/DUB/LCY? Or perhaps a Dundee rotation from Dublin to facilitate?

I would expect the timings (schedule) to stay exactly as they are at the moment.

Does anyone know the annual passenger numbers on any of the domestic routes? Pity there is no source of information like CAA to check the stats!

[sawtooth]

Yes there is! The CSO added a very useful route analysis tool to their website a few months back, only downside being it is kept 6 months behind, and doesn't show domestic route pairings.

http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Dialog/varval.asp?ma=ctm01&ti=Air+Passenger+Movement+(Number)+by+Irish+Airport,+Foreign +Airport,+Month+and+Direction&path=../Database/Eirestat/Airport%20Pairings/&lang=1

[virginblue]

What they could do is to offer a one-stop NOC-DUB-LCY service. VLM does it for it example on its Groningen - Amsterdam - London City route. The service is more or less just a tag on to the AMS-LCY route early in the morning and late in the evening. It is possible to book Groningen - London City and not only LCY-AMS and AMS-GRO.