Aer Lingus announce Gatwick base

dowlingm · 19-12-2008 4:05pm #1

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1219/aerlingus.html
excerpt:

The airline says it will initially base four planes at the airport from next April, to serve eight routes. The routes are to Malaga, Munich, Nice, Vienna, Dublin, Knock, Faro and Zurich.

Aer Lingus says it expects to increase the number of planes based at Gatwick to eight within 12 months.

Knock? Really?

Sponge Bob · 19-12-2008 4:46pm

pulling out of Belfast are they ??

Victor · 21-12-2008 6:58pm

I imagine this move is mostly about trying to feed passengers into trans-Atlantic services.

serfboard · 22-12-2008 1:07pm

dowlingm wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1219/aerlingus.html
excerpt:
Knock? Really?

Knock is interesting. Both Easyjet and Ryanair tried to make this route work, and much as I would like the idea of it, I'll give it a year, max, before it's pulled again - specially given that economic commentators (step forward, George Lee

) are saying that 2009 is going to be worse than this year.

dowlingm · 22-12-2008 3:59pm

Victor - presume you mean "this move" as NOC and not VIE, MUC, LGW and ZRH, all of whom are probably well supplied in transatlantic routes?

Chris_533976 · 22-12-2008 5:55pm

serfboard wrote: »

Knock is interesting. Both Easyjet and Ryanair tried to make this route work, and much as I would like the idea of it, I'll give it a year, max, before it's pulled again - specially given that economic commentators (step forward, George Lee ) are saying that 2009 is going to be worse than this year.

IMO Knock is the most pointless airport in the country. Close it down, sell it and put the money into a road to Galway airport. Fair play to them on getting a transatlantic service, but cmon. Knock airport is a joke.

Edit: Galway is too really but at least they admit that they're a small pointless airport, Knock suffer from massive delusions of grandeur.

Victor · 24-12-2008 5:09am

dowlingm wrote: »

Victor - presume you mean "this move" as NOC and not VIE, MUC, LGW and ZRH, all of whom are probably well supplied in transatlantic routes?

Oh, I'm sure they are, but AL will try to feed off them anyway - with the advantage of customs and immigration clearance this side of the Atlantic.

And they are back on Shannon-Heathrow. http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/1222/aerlingus.html

Slice · 24-12-2008 4:06pm

I imagine this move is mostly about trying to feed passengers into trans-Atlantic services.

According to the SB Post transatlantic flights originating from Gatwick is another possibility further down the line.

To be honest I don't, and response to some other comments on this thread, I don't think AL need to justify it any further if the move proves profitable.

Although I always thought that Boston would be a better hub airport as a first move outside the country given that it would better compliment the brand

dowlingm · 24-12-2008 5:16pm

Slice

US-EU arrangements in that regard would be far more restrictive.

Victor · 25-12-2008 10:52pm

Slice wrote: »

Although I always thought that Boston would be a better hub airport as a first move outside the country given that it would better compliment the brand

They have a tie-in with JetBlue for this.

http://www.aerlingus.com/cgi-bin/obel01im1/Corporate/obe_routemap_eur.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0236250780.1230245529@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdcadegdemhkmfcefecfigdffgdfki.0&P_OID=-536881153&Category=0

The session ID will probably time out but

http://www.aerlingus.com/ > About Us > Route Maps should get your there.

Aer Lingus announce Gatwick base

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