Aer Lingus and their A321's

David086

Does anyone know what's going on with Aer Lingus and there A321's? They currently have 3 and are 12 years old. Will they soon be replaced by what's rumoured to be Embraer's or are they going to buy in new ones?

Dacian

Well the A321s were originally chosen in the late 90s as the correct aircraft for EI to utilise on their DUB-LHR-LHR. They got 6, which then led to an initial order of 4 A320s. The success of these aircraft was a big factor in the EI decision to go all Airbus rather than invest in the B737NG post 2000. I think the last B737 left in 2004/5?

EI have very recently returned 3 of the A321 to their leasor. You can find pics of the WFU A321 in their new colours here

EI are in the process of taking delivery of 4 new A320 to replace the 3 A321. Link. The LHR routes no longer require the higher capacity of the A321. EI is going for frequency over capacity I think. In recent years they have been more commonly used on European routes.

I'm not sure why they are keeping the 3 A321. Jethros.eu state the other 3 were leased so maybe those 3 are owned by EI? I would guess that in the next 2 years EI will go all A320 before looking at another type (E190/C Series)

Bearcat

good post D............the remaining 321's are deffo for sale. Likewise EI-ORD is for sale and will be going to Bordeaux soon for some R and R before they decide what to do with it....it may go to the scrappers as parts are valuable.

Simon Gruber Says

Bearcat wrote: »

good post D............the remaining 321's are deffo for sale. Likewise EI-ORD is for sale and will be going to Bordeaux soon for some R and R before they decide what to do with it....it may go to the scrappers as parts are valuable.

Kinda seems like a waste to have retrofitted ORD with a new cabin into if they're going to sell/scrap it so soon afterward.

Cosmo Kramer

Out of curiosity, if an airline puts some aircraft up for sale how do they announce/promote that they are available...is there a kind of Autotrader for airlines website out there somewhere that they put them up on?

Not that I have €50m lying spare around the house or anything, I was just wondering!

A320

essentially yes,The leasing company will do that if they own the aircraft,however I'm not entirely sure if there's a website,i can ask someone in a little while how it works exactly and get back with an answer

iPlop

Dacian wrote: »

I would guess that in the next 2 years EI will go all A320 before looking at another type (E190/C Series)

I doubt EI will change their aircraft supplier unless they're changing the whole fleet.One of the reasons they went all airbus was that it was easy for pilots to fly all models of aircraft in the fleet instead of having a seperate crew of boeing pilots and Airbus pilots.The E190 is the largest aircraft Embraer have and I haven't saw any plans for a transatlantic model.Probably ideal for ryanair to adopt the E190/5 which costs about 30 million USD where as the 737 is 80 million

Lapin

Dacian wrote: »

The LHR routes no longer require the higher capacity of the A321. EI is going for frequency over capacity I think.

Is it possible to get more frequency on the Heathrow route ?
Aren't slots at the west London hub rarer than hen's teeth ?

A320

Cosmo Kramer,I asked someone about the earlier question and essentially yes the leasing company will have what they own on their site(and advertise through other mediums) and any interested customers will be wined and dined,shown the aircraft etc if they agree they'll then work on a package!!

LXFlyer

Lapin wrote: »

Is it possible to get more frequency on the Heathrow route ?
Aren't slots at the west London hub rarer than hen's teeth ?

Yes tbut didn't Aer Lingus have several of their slots leased out?

Taking them back would allow additional flights.

Plowman

This post has been deleted.

BuffyBot

I doubt EI will change their aircraft supplier unless they're changing the whole fleet

Mueller isn't stuck to the "single type" philosophy.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/aer-lingus-starts-pricing-smaller-craft-for-route-rejig-2327331.html

Smaller aircraft would allow them to serve more destinations than they do now, and also more cheaply. They would allow them to serve airports where demand and/or competition makes it uneconomical to run an A320 more frequently. Think of routes like Dublin to Helsinki, which is only served twice weekly during the summer schedule, which isn't optimal. With an Embraer etc, they could do routes like that 4 or 5 times weekly and cut it back to perhaps twice weekly during winter.

iPlop

BuffyBot wrote: »

Mueller isn't stuck to the "single type" philosophy.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/aer-lingus-starts-pricing-smaller-craft-for-route-rejig-2327331.html

Smaller aircraft would allow them to serve more destinations than they do now, and also more cheaply. They would allow them to serve airports where demand and/or competition makes it uneconomical to run an A320 more frequently. Think of routes like Dublin to Helsinki, which is only served twice weekly during the summer schedule, which isn't optimal. With an Embraer etc, they could do routes like that 4 or 5 times weekly and cut it back to perhaps twice weekly during winter.

Id imagine that's what O' leary's up to as well ,he'd have to keep a few 737's for flying to the canaries though

Steyr

Any heads up on the Retro-Jet?

Preset No.3

-ORD is a A330-300, which went to EI in 1997 new.

Here is an A340, 1997. Power steering, alloy wheels, AM/FM Radio, all the usual, a snip at $35 Million!!!!:D


http://www.controller.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=1167319

But then again, if you just want to get in the air, kind of like the first car. Bit of a boy racer, but not really!

$2m?????

http://www.controller.com/listingsdetail/aircraft-for-sale/BOEING-747-200B-C/1978-BOEING-747-200B-C/1150980.htm?dlr=1&pcid=1000492

basill

As stated above Mueller has lots of options available to him. He could go for a regional jet and increase frequency and fly into smaller airports where loads don't justify a 174 seat A320. With the lower operating costs of a smaller jet he might find a business case for overnighting crews so that they can do early morning departures from key cities (eg: AMS, FRA, CDG) and arrive into Dublin earlier.

Whilst the smaller A318/9 provide crew commonality and no additional training they are at least double the price of something like an Embraer. Crew training costs pale into comparison when you are talking about paying 10-20m plus more per airframe.

In terms of who will fly any regional jet then the jury is out on that one as well. There are rumours going around that AA will fly any small non airbus jets under the Aer Lingus AOC. Management at AA have for years been pushing around the rumour of jets arriving. In that past I would have said it was more in order to try and retain crews that left for greener pastures. Time will tell if the rumour comes true or not.

dogmatix

Sink The Banana wrote: »

I doubt EI will change their aircraft supplier unless they're changing the whole fleet.One of the reasons they went all airbus was that it was easy for pilots to fly all models of aircraft in the fleet instead of having a seperate crew of boeing pilots and Airbus pilots.The E190 is the largest aircraft Embraer have and I haven't saw any plans for a transatlantic model.Probably ideal for ryanair to adopt the E190/5 which costs about 30 million USD where as the 737 is 80 million

Would Ryanair really go for these? They seem a little small and have only 2+2 seating. The Embraer company demonstrator has colours similar to Ryanair - kinda gives an impression of what one might look like if O'Leary bought a few.

See pic - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Embraer175-01.jpg

BuffyBot

I don't see Ryanair taking E170/E190's anytime soon..if ever.

donkey balls

You will find that a lot of older pax aircraft are not scraped but converted to freighters,Of the big four Fedex, UPS, DHL&TNT they would have both converted freighters and ones made by Boeing/Airbus as freighters.
When I was flying home from the US on one or our MD11 we still had some of the first class seats up front from when the acft was with AA,Normally the pax acft is striped down and the floor re inforced for cargo ops then the G net&smoke screen/curtain installed.

David086

Steyr wrote: »

Any heads up on the Retro-Jet?

Mid March

mayotom

maybe Aer Lingus could also look at the Superjet 100, its getting a lot of attention recently.

kona

They will probably go A319 , obvious choice I have thought? Be easier to retrain the Engineering/mechanics/pilots on A319s than onto a totally different Manufacturer Id have thought.

BuffyBot

As basill put's it..

Whilst the smaller A318/9 provide crew commonality and no additional training they are at least double the price of something like an Embraer. Crew training costs pale into comparison when you are talking about paying 10-20m plus more per airframe.

The reason the A318 has been a relative failure as it's not really as competitive as the CRJ or E-series in terms of cost-per-mile. Plus in terms of landing charges it gets bundled in with the more expensive big jets where as the others do not. The A319 isn't different enough than the A320 to be much used to EI

kona

BuffyBot wrote: »

As basill put's it..



The reason the A318 has been a relative failure as it's not really as competitive as the CRJ or E-series in terms of cost-per-mile. Plus in terms of landing charges it gets bundled in with the more expensive big jets where as the others do not. The A319 isn't different enough than the A320 to be much used to EI

Maybe EI wont buy them new. Also what Powerplants can you get on the 319? Would they be Lower thrust CFM 56?

Tenger

BuffyBot wrote: »

The A319 isn't different enough than the A320 to be much used to EI

I could see EI getting 2-3 A319 over the next year or two. (Maybe eventually replace the last 3 A321 with them) This would allow them to try out the lower capacity/higher daily frequency model that the CEO has talked about.
They could save a little bit on staff costs by having 3 cabin crew (135-150 seats?) and the A319 would not entail any additional training costs. We may well see a hint of this in the 2010 results being released in 10 days.

While the A319 may not be the best/most efficient aircraft to bring into the fleet in the longterm, the commonality makes it the easiest to integrate in the short term.

dowlingm

kona - 319s can have CFM56, yes. BA's 318s (the ones that do BA001 via Shannon) also have CFM56.

An E-190 might be an interesting buy as it would reopen the possibility of EI to LCY if BA were okay with that. CityJet probably wouldn't be, obviously...

basill

Doesn't Aer Arann already do LCY as well as Cityjet? If you look at the new routes that were announced for the summer AA are covering all of the thin routes like Aberdeen etc for us. I can't see the economics of running an Airbus into LCY when there is already plenty of established competition.

Fratton Fred

Is the E190 the jet that Flybe operate? If so, that is a very nice plane.

cson

basill wrote: »

Doesn't Aer Arann already do LCY as well as Cityjet? If you look at the new routes that were announced for the summer AA are covering all of the thin routes like Aberdeen etc for us. I can't see the economics of running an Airbus into LCY when there is already plenty of established competition.

Aer Arann do LCY from the Isle of Man.

David086

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Is the E190 the jet that Flybe operate? If so, that is a very nice plane.

They fly both E195 and E175.

Tenger

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Is the E190 the jet that Flybe operate? If so, that is a very nice plane.

Flybe were the launch customer for the E195 (its the stretch version of the E190) As above they also operate the smaller E170/175. I also think the E190/195 is a nice looking aircraft. Think the cabin is 2-2 rather than the normal 3-3 of the B737/A320.

E170/175 : 80/88 seats.
E190/195 : 114/122 seats.

All but E195 have range of 1800 nmi, E195 is only 1400nmi.

As a comparison Finnair have a A319/320/321 fleet a bit smaller (11/12/6) than EI (0/34/3) but also have 16 E-jets. Jetblue use both the A320 and the E190. (wikipedia as source)

iPlop

David086 wrote: »

They fly both E195 and E175.

They put an order in last year for 35 E175's with an option for 65 more.Currently their fleet is made up of Bombardier Dash 8 and E175/95's source

cson

I'm not too clued in re the specifics of Landing Slots but would it not make more sense for EI to operate large capacity A321s on the route if their Landing Slots at LHR only allow [I assume] a certain amount/timings of landings at LHr per day. In other words; while I can certainly see the value of using high frequency mid capacity E-Series jets, would they be able to carry out the increased frequency in terms of actually getting slots at LHR to do it? I imagine LHR is close to capacity as far as aircraft take-offs/landings go. I mean from my untrained eye when I've been there even DUB seems close to capacity with only the two runways [there's like a flight every 5-10mins from 6.30am on til 10ish].

Dacian

EI would not be using smaller jets for LHR routes. They will use them to be able to operate 2 daily flights to less busy airports where it would not be appropriate to sent 2 daily A320 flights.

The smaller aircraft would be to supplement their exisitng routes rather than replace.

EG. Krakow may have a single afternoon A320 flight at the moment. Adding smaller jets may allow EI to instead operate 2 E190/A319 flights per day (early and late) to offer more choice to the passengers and maybe get more of the market share.

joegriffinjnr

Would it look something like this?

Or maybe we could have this:

Shamrock9108

Here is a link to my photo of the first 321 to leave the fleet. EI-CPC after it was painted at Dublin by Eirtech Aviation for its new owner..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/n707pm/5392433313/