Aer Lingus Long Haul

airbus125

I was just what peoples opinions are regarding its lack of long haul routes. It only has 4 long haul destinations from Ireland. Its not like they have a lack of planes considering they fly from madrid to IAD. What are the chances of them establishing new routes when they start receiving their A350's. I think it would be a great move to fly to sydney considering the amount of people immigrating although the plane would need refueling. LAX And SFO should be reestablished i think.
Thanks

b757

airbus125 wrote: »

I was just what peoples opinions are regarding its lack of long haul routes. It only has 4 long haul destinations from Ireland. Its not like they have a lack of planes considering they fly from madrid to IAD. What are the chances of them establishing new routes when they start receiving their A350's. I think it would be a great move to fly to sydney considering the amount of people immigrating although the plane would need refueling. LAX And SFO should be reestablished i think.
Thanks

LAX / SFO could happen..
I believe Canada may be a possibility

ThatGuy93

airbus125 wrote: »

I think it would be a great move to fly to sydney considering the amount of people immigrating although the plane would need refueling.

Wont happen as the costs associated with this type of operation would be enormous, as there would be at least one crew stationed at the oversea's layover and another crew at Sydney. The Unions would go up in arms and large allowance's would inevitably have to be paid to all staff operating these routes. Also most people choose a flight based solely on the price and Aer Lingus in its present form would not be able to compete with both Emirates and Etihad who also offer a one stop flight to Sydney from Dublin at lower prices then Aer Lingus ever could. The best we could ever hope for would be Aer Lingus operating a codeshare flight with Etihad to Abu Dhabi and Etihad offering a codeshare with Aer Lingus on their current flight to Syndey.

airbus125 wrote: »

LAX And SFO should be reestablished i think.
Thanks

I would be shocked if they didnt launch a new route to the West coast of the USA at some stage in the next few years but I seriously doubt whether they will service both LAX and SFO.

b757 wrote: »

I believe Canada may be a possibility

I find it hard to believe that Aer Lingus dont see fit already to operate a route to Canada with the amount of Irish out there at the moment, even if it was just a weekly seasonal service.

airbus125

it would hardly be very fuel and cost efficient to use A350s for 6-7 hour flights

b757

airbus125 wrote: »

it would hardly be very fuel and cost efficient to use A350s for 6-7 hour flights

Why not? A380's and 747's fly them routes all the times.

A380 -> FRA/CDG-JFK
747 -> LHR-SFO

If a a350 could be used 4/5x per week it could work out very efficiently.

basill

So how do airlines like BA and Virgin make a buck on longhaul then sunshine given that they accommodate their crews across the world on a daily basis? In some cases its over a week per crew at a time in the case of SYD flights before getting back to LHR. I would venture a guess that just 1 full fare first class ticket would more than likely cover the entire costs of hotac and allowances.

It has nothing to do with costs but more to do with demand. There are only 4m people here and to get to somewhere like SYD you have a 1 stop option with the likes of Emirates and Etihad. 2 stop options via LHR, FRA, AMS etc etc. AL couldn't compete unless it had a code share to operate the routes. Hence the ongoing discussions with Etihad at the moment.

Bearcat

Bringing up the unions and feeding crew daily allowances argument is tosh. The bottom line is AL is a tiny outfit and to have crew down route on numerous overnights is a logistic they can't cope with. AL is a seasonal airline.......it's through the rafters in summer and is hurtin in the low periods......hence it plies the old reliable immigrant routes. I don't see them going back to the west coast re the logistics argueement nor do I see them get 350s but will modernize with 330s which have been a savior for them.

I do see Toronto next year and rumors of Abu Dhabi on a code share have been mooted. There will be a spare aircraft with the rumored termination of the IAD/MAD route with united. AL not too plussed with united doing DUB/IAD now without them telling AL even though they are supposed code share partners.

Why AL don't do double daily ORDs and why they reduced the frequency of MCOs is blizzare.....half of virgin 330s ex LGW is full of transfers from Ireland.

Summing up I think re going proper long haul AL is too small to support the logistics entailed

Foggy43

I can give you an example. Say a B747-400. The outbound leg on a BA flight LHR to SYD will take in £280,000 approx with First (14 seats) and Business (70 seats) classes full. There will be more revenue from Premium Economy, Standard Economy and Cargo. You have advertising revenue from the IFE.

Aer Lingus or any other airline will need lots of regular business travellers to profit from longhaul routes. Even a certain CEO of another Irish airline has admitted he would need business class to make any revenue on trans atlantic routes.

airbus125

They ordered 6 A350s and 6 A330s and then they changed it to 9 A350s and And 3 A330s which they have already received so i would doubt very much that they won't get the 350s

BuffyBot

basill wrote: »

So how do airlines like BA and Virgin make a buck on longhaul then sunshine given that they accommodate their crews across the world on a daily basis? In some cases its over a week per crew at a time in the case of SYD flights before getting back to LHR. I would venture a guess that just 1 full fare first class ticket would more than likely cover the entire costs of hotac and allowances.

Their operating on a massively different scale. You can't compare large global airlines to relatively niche player like Aer Lingus.

Bearcat

airbus125 wrote: »

They ordered 6 A350s and 6 A330s and then they changed it to 9 A350s and And 3 A330s which they have already received so i would doubt very much that they won't get the 350s

They'll keep kicking the 350 can down the road says me. 350 is a different type rating for pilots with no crew cross crew qualifications here I believe. The need to do do some thing with EI LAX.....manf 1999. I'd say they'll trade their 200s first.

airbus125

They can just retire EI-LAX or Lease it. I doubt their using all their long haul aircraft right now.

Dacian

You have already got a few answers from people who are familiar with the industry, take heed of what they say.

airbus125 wrote: »

........ I doubt their using all their long haul aircraft right now.

In relation to the above comment, why on Earth would any airline not use expensive aircraft? (Ignoring certain misleading statements in the media by a certain airline CEO) EI have 7 A330, to not use 1 is to effectively reduce your fleet by 14% while maintaining the associated costs.

EI have 1 a/c in IAD, 1 in SNN, with the other 5 in DUB. All 7 are operating over and back to the USA from Europe each day. They have very high utilisation amongst their A330 fleet. (As mentioned in their investor briefing in March)

In terms of staring a new route, you don't just decide to do this on a whim. Lets say EI decide to go to Canada next summer...which existing route do they take an aircraft from, all of the current EI routes are profitable. So you are asking a company to abandon proven current profit for possible profit down the line in a new market.

On a similar vein, if EI go back to the West Coast, what frequency of ops do they settle on? 3 days, 5 days or even 7 a week? Too often and they offer over capacity, too little and they aren't convenient to the Business passengers! And again they have to look at which current route to steal from. 7 days a week would require 2 dedicated A330's, even 5 times a week would need to be balanced with another (less than daily) route.

Looking further afield. EK and EY currently operate 7/10 times a week respectively out of DUB, this then connects on to flights to Australia and Asia. In reality how could EI possible compete with this? They cannot fly direct so must stop off somewhere. Where and at what cost? They cannot offer seamless connections elsewhere than the actual route and they probably cannot compete with these 2 behemoths on cost due to their huge economy of scale. This doesn't even take into account the cost of acquiring extra a/c to operate the route.
Why would EI even want to try?


Someone else mentioned crew costs, in real terms labour costs are a small part of operating longhaul air travel. Fuel alone accounts for approx 25% of a medium haul flight. US West coast (and Asia) would be higher than this. This leaves them very susceptible to the fluctuations in the global Oil industry.

drdeadlift

Dacian wrote: »

You have already got a few answers from people who are familiar with the industry, take heed of what they say.

In relation to the above comment, why on Earth would any airline not use expensive aircraft? (Ignoring certain misleading statements in the media by a certain airline CEO) EI have 7 A330, to not use 1 is to effectively reduce your fleet by 14% while maintaining the associated costs.

EI have 1 a/c in IAD, 1 in SNN, with the other 5 in DUB. All 7 are operating over and back to the USA from Europe each day. They have very high utilisation amongst their A330 fleet. (As mentioned in their investor briefing in March)

In terms of staring a new route, you don't just decide to do this on a whim. Lets say EI decide to go to Canada next summer...which existing route do they take an aircraft from, all of the current EI routes are profitable. So you are asking a company to abandon proven current profit for possible profit down the line in a new market.

On a similar vein, if EI go back to the West Coast, what frequency of ops do they settle on? 3 days, 5 days or even 7 a week? Too often and they offer over capacity, too little and they aren't convenient to the Business passengers! And again they have to look at which current route to steal from. 7 days a week would require 2 dedicated A330's, even 5 times a week would need to be balanced with another (less than daily) route.

Looking further afield. EK and EY currently operate 7/10 times a week respectively out of DUB, this then connects on to flights to Australia and Asia. In reality how could EI possible compete with this? They cannot fly direct so must stop off somewhere. Where and at what cost? They cannot offer seamless connections elsewhere than the actual route and they probably cannot compete with these 2 behemoths on cost due to their huge economy of scale. This doesn't even take into account the cost of acquiring extra a/c to operate the route.
Why would EI even want to try?


Someone else mentioned crew costs, in real terms labour costs are a small part of operating longhaul air travel. Fuel alone accounts for approx 25% of a medium haul flight. US West coast (and Asia) would be higher than this. This leaves them very susceptible to the fluctuations in the global Oil industry.

Could they fly to DEL or SIN and connect up with qf? EI AND qf could help one another.330 might not be great choice,,

Tenger

drdeadlift wrote: »

Could they fly to DEL or SIN and connect up with qf? EI AND qf could help one another.330 might not be great choice,,

They could.....but then you are looking at talks to get a codeshare, doesn't happen overnight. Then you still have the problems mentioned by the poster above, lack of aircraft, what schedule, what fare level? On top of that you have a plan for operational disruptions downroute/enroute, the further away the aircraft is the harder it is to contain/handle serious disruptions.

cocoshovel

Do you think there could be any potential long haul routes to the East such as Asia or perhaps south to Africa?

BuffyBot

Why would there be? Considering the numbers of connecting passengers involved for popular destinations, running a route to somewhere with little/no demand, connecting traffic or onward partners would be commercial suicide

drdeadlift

Was reading airliners.net about the loss qf are making in both Asia and the lack of presence in Europe,as for meeting qf half way out in Asia you give the mid east guys some form of competition as well as giving Irish a direct route to Asia and vice versa.
As for ei not having the equipment,can this be an eternal excuse preventing them from trying something new.Aircraft can be leased short term.
There is a very big market in Asia for potential tourist here.

BuffyBot

Tourists aren't money makers, and aircraft leases are not cheap...

roundymac

Are EI still operating Mad-IAD with United, I was under the impression that it was being terminated.

drdeadlift

BuffyBot wrote: »

Tourists aren't money makers, and aircraft leases are not cheap...

What would you suggest then

Tenger

drdeadlift wrote: »

What would you suggest then

You need a solid level of business traffic as well an existing O&D market. (Origin&Destination)

Thus DUB-JFK offers lots of business related travel, lots of travelers heading just to either city, an existing level of 'Irish' demand in the destination, tourist traffic adds to that. Traditionally tourism is price sensitive, business related and family related are more Time sensitive, thus higher profit margins can be achieved from these pax.