The Aer Lingus Pullout From Shannon

Sponge Bob

The Real Plan , I have been reliably told, is to can the whole AL SNN operation by the end of the summer in 2008 and to resume it 'under pressure' and with a skeleton inhouse staff and lots of agency people in spring 2009 but on an all year round basis thereafter .

I never though that I would find myself completely in agreement with everything that Mick O Leary said but I must admit that Micko has clearly seen the looming disaster for the west coast corridor from Limerick to Sligo and the west Midlands, pop the best part of 1m as against Belfast catchment pop 1.5m .

Micko realises that his lot do not really do interconnects or facilitate interconnects and certainly not to intercontinental flights. Most really large operations in the west are intercontinental not european and need their interconnects .

The pullout and the intervening hiatus while we wait for Aer Lingus to resume flights in 2 years time will be a disaster for the 1m people in its natural catchment area.

It will dramatically affect the entire range of industrial and large scale private sector service activity and not for the better. Therefore it must be stopped now . This month . It must be clarified furthermore that the subject will never be revisited .

I would ask you, if you live in the west, to read Mickos statement below and to maybe email him or his minions ( ryanair addresses are surname first initial @ guess where) your thanks and ongoing support or to post him a letter or to mail the national press on the subject .

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=07&month=aug&story=gen-en-070807

[SIZE=+1]RYANAIR STATEMENT ON AER LINGUS CLOSURE OF SHANNON-HEATHROW ROUTE
[/SIZE]

Ryanair which currently owns 25% of Aer Lingus, has today (Tuesday, 7th August 2007) written to An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern TD offering to work with the Government and other shareholders to request Aer Lingus to maintain its Shannon-Heathrow services which the Minister for Transport said in October 2006 “serves the unique role in ensuring connectivity to/from Ireland”.
In response to Aer Lingus’s statement today, Ryanair said that:
Closing the Shannon-Heathrow route demonstrated that the Minister for Transport and the Irish Government had lied in their public statements during the Ryanair takeover of Aer Lingus last October. Ryanair pointed to the then Minister for Transport’s statement (2 October 2006) in which he said:
“Heathrow Airport, London serves a unique role in ensuring connectivity to/from Ireland. This connectivity is fundamental both to provide connections to/from Dublin, as well as to/from the regions.”
“The Minister for Transport considers that 4 London-Heathrow slot pairs for services to/from Shannon would be critical to ensuring connectivity to these airports, because this is the minimum necessary to ensure a spread of flights throughout the day.”
“On this basis, the Minister…is unlikely to support a proposed disposal of any slot pair, such that there would be less than the existing London-Heathrow slot pairs that relate to services between London Heathrow and Cork or Shannon.”
Ryanair has written today to An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern offering to work with the Government to ensure that Aer Lingus maintains its Shannon-Heathrow service. Given that the Irish Government owns 25.3% of Aer Lingus and Ryanair owns 25% of Aer Lingus, Ryanair believes that the Board of Aer Lingus would find it difficult to refuse a joint request from Ryanair and the Irish Government to maintain the “critical” connectivity between Shannon and Heathrow. If Bertie Ahern accepts Ryanair’s offer, then the current Aer Lingus connectivity between Shannon and Heathrow can be maintained and indeed enhanced.
Speaking today, Ryanair’s Chief Executive, Michael O’Leary said:
“It is clear from the statements above that the Government lied last October to both the people of Shannon, as well as the European Commission. The then Minister for Transport assured the Irish people that the Government would not allow a privatised Aer Lingus to reduce its current operations between Shannon and Heathrow. As usual this Government’s promises are worthless.
“I believe this Government also lied to the European Commission when – in opposing Ryanair’s offer for Aer Lingus – it claimed that the preservation of services from Shannon to Heathrow by Aer Lingus was vital for Irish consumers. It is clear that the Government had no interest in consumers at Shannon. Clearly the Irish Government lied to the European Commission, as well as to the people of Shannon.
“If the Irish Government wants to preserve connections between Shannon and Heathrow, then Ryanair’s offer will allow this to come about. If the Government fails to take up Ryanair’s offer, then it will be evidence yet again that this Government’s word is worthless. Aer Lingus’s Shannon slots get transferred today. What’s to stop Aer Lingus transferring their Cork slots tomorrow? What’s to prevent Aer Lingus’s Dublin slots being transferred in time to major U.S. airlines?
“In the last three months both Aer Lingus and the Irish Government assured the European Commission that an independent Aer Lingus was the only way to maintain competition and choice between Aer Lingus and Ryanair. Today’s sacrifice of Shannon in favour of Belfast reduces that competition and proves that both Aer Lingus and the Irish Government lied to the European Commission. Had Ryanair’s offer for Aer Lingus been successful, Shannon today would continue to enjoy four daily flights to Heathrow, as Ryanair’s offer committed it to maintaining Aer Lingus’s Heathrow slots.
“We look forward to an early and positive reply from Bertie Ahern, who can now save these Shannon services by taking up Ryanair’s offer. Sadly on its own Ryanair cannot prevent this closure at Shannon because with just 25% ownership, we do not have any power or influence over Aer Lingus”.

This , by the way , is separate from the stopover issue. The stopover is a dead duck but we can survive that in the west. WE CANNOT LOSE HEATHROW, the largest airport in Europe. We shall soon find ourselves far more isolated than Aberdeen, pop in catchment area 1m people at the same distance from London

Aberdeen has 2 airlines to Heathrow ( BA and BD) and 1 to Gatwick (but no Stansted). These are the 2 intercontinental UK hubs.

4 flights a day to Gatwick
13 ( at least ) to Heathrow

details from here

shall we say at least 16 flights to 2 London Airports.

All we will get is 3 to Stansted and maybe 4 once Aer Lingus pull out.

therecklessone

Anyone who thinks that O'Leary is motivated by anything other than mischief (and the odd bit of publicity) is gullible in the extreme.

If the demand exists at SNN for services to LHR then the SAA should be out touting for new business.

If the government do step in and force a rethink on SNN then we may as well throw Aer Lingus to the wolves, because it will never have the freedom to operate without political interference.

jmayo

Having worked in Shannon I have used those Heathrow flights both for personal and business purposes. The company I worked for is a multi-national and it uses those flights to connect to it's other European sites and Euorpean HQ. What is their choice now?
Drive to Dublin or fly to another UK airport and try and connect from there?

If they walk away and leave Shannon then I will never use Aer Lingus again.
Fair enough set up operations between Belfast and Heathrow, but do not screw Shannon in the process.

This is move is also part of Berties little political game to apease the Nordies.
That is why he is staying stum on the whole thing.
He can not afford to be seen now taking something away from our friends in the north.
It is very funny how low a profile the government ministers are keeping on this topic.
It even looks like we have not longer a minister for transport.
Is he hiding out in the soon to be dleivered metro tunnel :rolleyes:

therecklessone

jmayo wrote:

What is their choice now?
Drive to Dublin or fly to another UK airport and try and connect from there?

Does everybody west of the Shannon believe Cork doesn't exist?

Or is it betrayal to give business to Shannon's main competitor?

finbarrk

The pressure is increasing on Aer Lingus, a huge turnout at a meeting in Shannon today.

therecklessone

If half the energy being expended in protesting and general whining was directed towards trying to market SNN and access to the region (you know, treating the airport as a business not a charity case) then maybe the EI pull out wouldn't be an issue.

How about courting Cityjet/Air France for flights to London City (linking to all of these European destinations) and Paris?

BMI operate 8 flghts daily from Belfast City to LHR, why not court them (given they'll be under pressure from EI at Aldergrove)?

Is the mid-west region conditioned to expect government action?

jmayo

:rolleyes:

therecklessone wrote:

Does everybody west of the Shannon believe Cork doesn't exist?

Or is it betrayal to give business to Shannon's main competitor?

So what tranpsort infrastructure exists between Cork and Shannon pray tell me?
The rail network takes you around the country and then you are dumped 17 odd miles away in Limerick. That will really impress your American CEO all right.
Or maybe you want everyone to catch an overpriced taxi?

If you are transferring between airports you would probably do it in the UK where at least there are proper infrastrucure links.
London City is not answer either. Access straight into Heathrow is what you want if you are a business traveller.
Then you can connect to transatlantic flight or fly on as I have to Charles De Gaulle or Schipol.

If you are to use another Irish airport, you would probably opt for Dublin since greater choice of destinations and number of flights.
Also it would nearly be as easy to get to M50 as to Cork. Note I said M50 not airport itself which is another Irish sucess story :rolleyes:

Cork is not the answer and if you think that is acceptable to the businesses in Shannon/Limerick area then you are as deluded as the government who appear to think this will blow over.

therecklessone

jmayo wrote:

Cork is not the answer and if you think that is acceptable to the businesses in Shannon/Limerick area then you are as deluded as the government who appear to think this will blow over.

I never suggested it was, I just find it hilarious that the mid-west lobby seems to want to write Cork out of existence like it's some sort of inconvenient fact

jmayo wrote:

If you are transferring between airports you would probably do it in the UK where at least there are proper infrastrucure links.
London City is not answer either. Access straight into Heathrow is what you want if you are a business traveller.
Then you can connect to transatlantic flight or fly on as I have to Charles De Gaulle or Schipol.

15 flights LCY-AMS Monday to Thursday

6 flights LCY-ORY (Paris Orly) Monday to Thursday

Access to London City is exactly what the business community needs if their business is in London.

Did you even look at the list of destinations served out of London City?

Did you consider BMI as an alternative?

John_Mc

Regardless of O'Leary's motivation, the end result would still mean Shannon remaining connected to LHR and Id be happy with that.

I don't think it's one bit funny that the Government are saying nothing about this.

Gablin

therecklessone wrote:

Does everybody west of the Shannon believe Cork doesn't exist?

With a four hour drive which passes through Limerick?

As far as flying goes, you're damn right I beleive it!

jmayo

therecklessone wrote:

I never suggested it was, I just find it hilarious that the mid-west lobby seems to want to write Cork out of existence like it's some sort of inconvenient fact


15 flights LCY-AMS Monday to Thursday

6 flights LCY-ORY (Paris Orly) Monday to Thursday

Access to London City is exactly what the business community needs if their business is in London.

Did you even look at the list of destinations served out of London City?

Did you consider BMI as an alternative?

There are a few major companies in Shannon that are US subsidaries (Molex or Avocent for example), there is Dell, Analog Devices in Limerick and thus staff would be going US.
There are no transatantic flights out of London city.
What about going to the Far East, you still have to drag your ass to Heathrow.

Others would have UK business but that does not mean that they are are slap bank in the middle of London.
It is fine if you are going to city centre.
For instance if your are going to Slough or Reading (where there are more than a few computer industry European HQs) then Heathrow is ideal.

Another important point for business travellers is time and ease of connections.
Look at the options provided by Heathrow. There is no way you have anything similar from London City.
You can't say that London city is as good as Heathrow, it is not a major European/World hub.

We have politicans bleating about our future as a service economy and how we should screw agriculture in WTO talks, because the future is an open world economy and we want to be part of it.
But on the other hand you are cutting off a primary transport link to one of one of our industrial and economic focal points.

It's time our great government crawled out from under the rocks they have been hiding under forlast few days and stated what they are going to do about this.

Yes, I did actually follow your link.
I noticed they appear to have BMI flights to Schiphol and Orly.

Are you condoning what Aer Lingus is doing and would you rather see Shannon fail so that Cork may get some more passengers ?

FlutterinBantam

jmayo wrote:

Are you condoning what Aer Lingus is doing and would you rather see Shannon fail so that Cork may get some more passengers ?

The only reason Snn will fail is if they believe that the country owes them a living.

If Snn is viable,then it is viable, artificial viability eventually reaches the end of its era.Foynes ran its course years ago.

el tel

It's rubbish for the local population that Shannon is being dropped. I'm surprised that they could do it, unless they could do so without the consenus of the share holders. Historically Aer Lingus didn't want to have to serve the regions in any case. In fact the foremost reason they did was because European rules back in the day stipulated that they did. If it wasn't for those then they wouldn't be doing it in the first place. Serving the regions was once a right pain in the ass - charging people minimal amounts (£10-50IR to fly a connecting leg to Dublin) at a time when there was very little competition in the market and years before 'no-frills' airlines and also when those planes could be going on better yielding flights elsewhere.

It is funny however to see that certain governmet ministers are finally voicing their disquiet. Can't help feeling it's some sort of protest bandwagon for them.

jmayo

FlutterinBantam wrote:

The only reason Snn will fail is if they believe that the country owes them a living.

If Snn is viable,then it is viable, artificial viability eventually reaches the end of its era.Foynes ran its course years ago.

I think you will find that Foynes ran it's course when they stopped using Flying Boats on trans-atlantic routes due to improvements in land based aircarft brought about by developments during WWII, not becuiase the airlines decided to move the flying boats to Belfast.

Shannon has suffered a downturn since longer range jets were available that did not need to stop at closest extremes on the Atlantic crossing.
The forced stopover was an artifical way of getting Irish transatlantic flights to stop there, which was a bit of a joke for Dublin based travellers.
Also during 1970/80s/90s etc they had through traffic from USSR, which also brought money into the airport. Of course now they have US military related flights.

The funny thing about this argument is that the route is profitable, although I am not saying that the Aer Lingus staff are not a big overhead.
We are not really talking about viability since route is profitable.
Aer Lingus believe they can make more money flying out of Aldergrove and thus sacrificed the Shannon routes.

So if you use the purely economic argument for Aer Lingus, then let Aer Lingus make more money and move to Belfast.

But the bigger argument is they are supposedly our national carrier, they are meant to provide necessary transport links to the outside world.
That was one of the arguments for retaining public stake and one of the reasons why government could not allow them be taken over by Ryan Air etc, etc.
Now suddenly they are cutting one of the major transport links of this country.

Something that has to be weighed up is the larger economy.
Some peoples view appears to me to be: "Lets have a more profitable Aer Lingus, f*ck it if Shannon can't survice, so what, it's the open market, competition is competition".

I am sure these same people will also like it when they have to support a few hundred more people from Shannon or the Mid-West that will be joing the dole queues.
Ireland as a base is already in trouble. Companies are leaving because we are too expensive. The last thing the Mid-West region needs is the transport links also being cut.

FlutterinBantam

jmayo wrote:

But the bigger argument is they are supposedly our national carrier, they are meant to provide necessary transport links to the outside world.
That was one of the arguments for retaining public stake and one of the reasons why government could not allow them be taken over by Ryan Air etc, etc.
Now suddenly they are cutting one of the major transport links of this country.

Something that has to be weighed up is the larger economy.
Some peoples view appears to me to be: "Lets have a more profitable Aer Lingus, f*ck it if Shannon can't survice, so what, it's the open market, competition is competition".

I am sure these same people will also like it when they have to support a few hundred more people from Shannon or the Mid-West that will be joing the dole queues.
Ireland as a base is already in trouble. Companies are leaving because we are too expensive. The last thing the Mid-West region needs is the transport links also being cut.

Unfortunately Aer Lingus is not now a national carrier and is operating on a commercial basis answerable to shareholders.
Historically Shannon was "cossetted" over the years and ,in my opinion,made the mistake of believing that it was operating on a free market commercial basis.
False expectations were built up and now that the cold winds of reality have blown through the area it cannot comprehend it!!!

Get off your arses, the country doesn't owe you a living.

therecklessone

jmayo wrote:

Yes, I did actually follow your link.
I noticed they appear to have BMI flights to Schiphol and Orly.

Now I know you haven't read the links.

cp251

There is no such thing as a flag carrier anymore. Aer Lingus has ceased to be a social employment service. Among others, we can thank Michael O'Leary for this. MOL's breathtaking hypocrisy is not surprising. What he would give to have those LHR slots. You can be damm sure, SNN wouldn't get a look in. Indeed, I am quite sure that the competition both Ryanair and Easyjet generated in SNN on the London routes was a big part of the decision to move to Belfast.

Aer Lingus made a purely commercial decision just like Ryanair would. Belfast is a big city with a large business community who need to travel to LHR. SNN is a big airport out of it's place and time. Aer Lingus is a business, no more no less and must operate like that.

The problem with a lot people still, particularly in the old style unionised companies, is that they believe they are owed a living. SNN is a classic example of that. Times have changed, I'm afraid. The days of using taxpayers money to prop up unprofitable dinosaurs is gone. In fact it's now illegal by EU law.

While I have a lot of sympathy with the business argument that multinationals use LHR for interconnecting flights. It's a bit much to expect Aer Lingus to remain in SNN just for the small number of people who need that service.

Like it or not SNN needs to downsize it's expectations. It is essentially a regional airport just like Kerry or Galway. It's transatlantic glory days are gone and once the Iraq war is over it will go very quiet on the transatlantic front.

lostexpectation

willie odea called mannion a later day cromwell!

ha classic

FlutterinBantam

Indeed... the response of a classic buffoon.

A lot of tapeworms have been feasting on the belly of Shannon for quite some years,with the full support of the elected representatives of that area,who of course,engrandised themselves in the knowledge that their patch was fed and watered by the slobbering taxpayer further East.

now that Dermot has pulled the rug from under their feet,it will be interesting to see if they have a bit more initiative than "Cromwell" comments at they see their voter base finally see that the Emperor has no clothes.

Interesting times ahead.

Sponge Bob

therecklessone wrote:

If half the energy being expended in protesting and general whining was directed towards trying to market SNN and access to the region (you know, treating the airport as a business not a charity case) then maybe the EI pull out wouldn't be an issue.

This is being done .

How about courting Cityjet/Air France for flights to London City (linking to all of these European destinations) and Paris?

crap idea

small planes
city airport closes at 9pm

BMI operate 8 flghts daily from Belfast City to LHR, why not court them (given they'll be under pressure from EI at Aldergrove)?

Good idea. BA better idea.

Is the mid-west region conditioned to expect government action?

no more than Dublin is .

ednwireland

didnt o'leary offer the eu to sell 2/3 of the heathrow slots if they allowed him to takover aer lingus ?
christ that mans got a brass neck full of BS as usual

therecklessone

Sponge Bob wrote:

crap idea

small planes
city airport closes at 9pm

Seems the crap idea is being explored by the SAA, along with overtures to BMI and BA for services to LHR.

Perhaps the privatisation of Aer Lingus has provided the commercial kick in the bollox that Shannon has needed since day 1?

Sponge Bob

Replacing a 180 seater A320 with a 90 seater Bae146 or ATR is a crap idea.

City Airport is a crap idea .

An a320 or 737 to schiphol or paris cdg or heathrow is the only non crap idea .

expediateclimb

"Seems the crap idea is being explored by the SAA, along with overtures to BMI and BA for services to LHR"

Just out of curiosity how come this is only being done now. Why was Shannon so reliant on AL to service connections with a major uk airport.

And what happens if AL pull out of Shannon altogether? Do they close down?

Seems to me that the management at Shannon need to get off their fat arses and get some new airlines operating out of there.