Ryanair Route cuts - Dublin to Tallinn?

100gSoma

I see that Ryanair has cut half of its Finnish routes. Does anybody know about the fate of the Dublin Esotnia route.
Had wanted to book Xmas trip, but there are NO flights available in either direction DUB - TLL or TLL to Dublin after November 6th?

I suppose it's possible that the schedule is not available yet, but then again, it would seem they wouldbe selling the seats by now if they planned to run the route in a December.

Tallinn airport has officially said last week that they do not know Ryanairs plans for Tallinn airport winter schedule.

I supopse the route was always loss making, even with full aircraft. 3 hours flight time etc. Very expensive.

Rasmus

100gSoma wrote: »

I see that Ryanair has cut half of its Finnish routes. Does anybody know about the fate of the Dublin Esotnia route.
Had wanted to book Xmas trip, but there are NO flights available in either direction DUB - TLL or TLL to Dublin after November 6th?

I suppose it's possible that the schedule is not available yet, but then again, it would seem they wouldbe selling the seats by now if they planned to run the route in a December.

Tallinn airport has officially said last week that they do not know Ryanairs plans for Tallinn airport winter schedule.

I supopse the route was always loss making, even with full aircraft. 3 hours flight time etc. Very expensive.

I don't know why they'd take it off, it seemed very popular (always hard enough to get a cheap flight). Maybe you are right though in that it is not a profitable route. If you want to book something, it is quite inexpensive to fly to Stockholm and change for Tallinn - you just have to research flight times and do some comparison shopping.

100gSoma

Cheers Rasmus. I have used the Ryanair service to Tallinn many times since it began. It was always full. Average price was about 100-150 return.

The next cheapest alternative is about 330euro return and because it stops in Oslo/Stockholm/Copenhagen takes about 7 hours in total. Ryanair was 3 hours direct. It's a shame alright, but I bet fuel cost and the 3 hour flight time killed it. Still.. fingers crossed it will appear online soon and is not totally dead.

They had recently cut one of the days. Used to be TUE/THU/SAT and they cut out the THU flight.

Rasmus

100gSoma wrote: »

Cheers Rasmus. I have used the Ryanair service to Tallinn many times since it began. It was always full. Average price was about 100-150 return.

The next cheapest alternative is about 330euro return and because it stops in Oslo/Stockholm/Copenhagen takes about 7 hours in total. Ryanair was 3 hours direct. It's a shame alright, but I bet fuel cost and the 3 hour flight time killed it. Still.. fingers crossed it will appear online soon and is not totally dead.

They had recently cut one of the days. Used to be TUE/THU/SAT and they cut out the THU flight.

If they do cut it, hopefully SAS (Estonian air and AirBaltic used to have the route) will fill the gap. I've often flown to Riga when flights to Tallinn were unattainable for one reason or another - but I expect for a weekend that wouldn't make sense for you! (Or are you going for longer?)

100gSoma

Just depends. Sometimes go for a week, sometimes a weekend. Used to do the Saturday till Tuesday with Ryanair alot. As it arrived over there at 2pm which was great. Flight home Tuesday afternoon.

I used to hate Estonia Air because their flight left Dublin at 0050am and arrived at 6am local. Horrible. :eek:

Rasmus

100gSoma wrote: »

Just depends. Sometimes go for a week, sometimes a weekend. Used to do the Saturday till Tuesday with Ryanair alot. As it arrived over there at 2pm which was great. Flight home Tuesday afternoon.

I used to hate Estonia Air because their flight left Dublin at 0050am and arrived at 6am local. Horrible. :eek:

You go to Estonia a lot? Wondering if I know you!!

100gSoma

I hope they never buy Aer Lingus. They'll slash half the routes too.

Ryanair has announced it will cut flights to and from Tallinn from the following cities:

- Frankfurt Hahn

- Dusseldorf Weeze

- Dublin

- Manchester

- Stockholm (Skavsta)

- Girona

- Bremen

LiamMc

I'm disappointed there are less services to Tallinn as I see it as a cheap route to get to St. Petersburg.
But regarding whether Ryanair run a route that is non-profit making. No, I think a small hint in the reduction of profits from a route and the airline would be amending the route and making noises to airport and national air federations.

100gSoma

I agree with you Liam, Ryanairs model is 110% based on profit and return. They are not there to provide a service (as a national airline is), they are only there to make profits.

I'm a bit disappointed because the only other way to get to Tallinn from Dublin now is via some other airport. This means the total journey time is at least 6 to 9 hours rather than 3hours direct.

Estonian Air used to have a direct flight to Dublin but had to cut it when Ryanair came in and offered the same route at about half the cost. Now that Ryanair are gone there is a vacuum. No flight options at all. Who loses? The customer I guess.

nomoreindie

Is the Tallinn route just being cut from the winter schedule or will it return next Spring?

ScottSF

It is really sad to see Ryanair as well as Aer Lingus (they both see to do the same thing) run many routes only "in season." I know it is much more popular to visit many places in the summer months, but I for one like to travel in the off season.

I flew the direct flight to Tallinn when they started it and had a wonderful time there and in Helsinki (day trip by ferry). I hope that it is just a glitch and the direct flights will reappear shortly. I still think the airlines can be profitable running more routes in the colder months. As long as the price is right people will travel in both directions for holiday and family visits.

100gSoma

Ryanairs Nordic marketing person Elina Hakkarainen has confirmed that all routes from Tallinn are cut for the winter season except the London Luton, Milan, and Oslo routes. She said they hope to offer services on the other routes again in Spring. She did not say when in spring, but I presume before St. Patricks day anyway, Also, "we hope to offer" is obviously no guarantee. I was looking at the Tallinn airport statistics in their website, and less than 1% of their visitors are Irish nationals. 6.7% were UK. The Dublin route is small fish for Ryanair.

I think its a shame. I've been travelling to Estonia since 06 and I have to say that the old town is absolutely magical when covered in a blanket of snow. the old buildings, the 'dry'cold, cobblestones, the city christmas tree, open fires in pubs, the old square xmas market, the lights; its a really nice experience. I would certainly pay a little bit more to keep the route opened over xmas and new years. I think there are only 2500 Estonians in Ireland though, so even if half of them visit home over xmas, it's not much. I'm sure London has a much bigger pool of potential customers.

munchkin_utd

indeed, theres only 2350 Estonians in Ireland and presumably a miniscule population of Irish in Estonia so there'd not be that much demand on flights from them alone to keep a route running the entire winter and with the cold and dreary weather in the winter tourism in both directions is probably quite limited too.

The other baltic states have much higher populations in Ireland.
From the CSO Latvia has 13,999 and Lithuania 24,808 citizens living in Ireland so the ex pat market to those countries is way larger than to a route to Estonia.

As an Irishman living in Germany the availability of a direct flight home is a godsend that makes living abroad that little bit more bearable, but unless the planes are full the flights wont last.
Thankfully for us in Munich theres plenty of tourism going both ways all year long (incl wintersports) to fill the seats but unlike the link to Talinn theres also a large proportion of business travellers in both directions during the week outside the busy holiday season(s) that makes it a pretty lucrative route for Aer Lingus no matter what time of the year it is.

Still, its not the 1000 odd irish or few thousand southern germans in Ireland that are keeping our MUC-DUB flights full, its the other traffic - and thats unfortunately where Tallin probably just cant sustain even an occassional flight per week.

Rasmus

munchkin_utd wrote: »

indeed, theres only 2350 Estonians in Ireland

by any chance do you have a link to this statistic?

munchkin_utd

Rasmus wrote: »

by any chance do you have a link to this statistic?

yup:
http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/population/personsusuallyresidentandpresentinthestateoncensusnightclassifiedbyplaceofbirthandagegroup/

"Estonia - 2,373"

Rasmus

munchkin_utd wrote: »

yup:
http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/population/personsusuallyresidentandpresentinthestateoncensusnightclassifiedbyplaceofbirthandagegroup/

"Estonia - 2,373"

Thanks!! I thought it was around 10,000

sudaltsov

Will there be more flights to Riga? Or may be at least the time of those flights would be changed to something more reasonable (earlier)?

Naid23

I love Tallinn, have been twice in the last year and was hoping to go back again for christmas.
Guess I will have to look for alternative travel.

Rasmus

It is still possible to get there! Before Ryanair flew there, one just found the cheapest way. Sometimes that was flying to Helsinki and getting the ferry, to Riga and taking the bus (but that is better for South Estonia) or to Stockholm and getting a cheap flight from there.

100gSoma

still possible alright. but not from 100euro return as the dublin flight used to cost.

you can fly to Riga direct and take a 4 hour bus to tallinn.
Or you can fly from London to Tallinn on Ryanair. Very cheap, but I could not find a way to get into London city in time to catch the flight. It leaves very early. Maybe a cheap hotel in london would still work out feasible.

I find the Dub to Oslo or Dub to Stockholm trabfers work out at about 300euro, and usually require a 2 hour stop over, so it's a days travel almost.

Just back from Tallinn yesterday. Dublin flight had 165 on it. It was also full on the way out. Just not profitable I guess.

nomoreindie

route restarts on March 16 2013:)

sudaltsov

Where is that info from?

nomoreindie

sudaltsov wrote: »

Where is that info from?

its on the ryanair website

munchkin_utd

nomoreindie wrote: »

its on the ryanair website

well, that is a twist of words.

There is no announcement or press release on the website but there's twice weekly flights now on their booking system from March onwards.

Ryanair normally do their announcements in batches per airport so it'll probably get announced sometime between now and christmas as a great new service along with others that were cut for the winter.

100gSoma

looks like this route DUB-TLL has been cut further for 2014.
Jun-Sep only it appears.

http://www.ryanair.com/en/cheap-flights/dublin-to-tallinn

sudaltsov

What the hell? The flight was never empty! For many people it was a reasonably cheap way to get to St.Petersburg as well! Is there anything political about those decisions??

100gSoma

My good friend who is Estonian seems to think this is a political issue between Ryanair and Tallinn airport.

The flights from Dublin to Tallinn are now ONLY available for July and August in 2014. And.. They are 90-160euro EACH way. That means a return trip is about 200euro cheapest! Unbelievable. It used to be about 100euro return all year.
Very disappointing.

Ah well... Maybe it will be a temporary thing. I used to fly there 2 or 3 times a year and the flights on any of the three days were always 90+% full. That was about 500 passengers per week into Tallinn. That's got to hurt the local economy?

schemingbohemia

sudaltsov wrote: »

What the hell? The flight was never empty! For many people it was a reasonably cheap way to get to St.Petersburg as well! Is there anything political about those decisions??

100gSoma wrote: »

My good friend who is Estonian seems to think this is a political issue between Ryanair and Tallinn airport.

The flights from Dublin to Tallinn are now ONLY available for July and August in 2014. And.. They are 90-160euro EACH way. That means a return trip is about 200euro cheapest! Unbelievable. It used to be about 100euro return all year.
Very disappointing.

Ah well... Maybe it will be a temporary thing. I used to fly there 2 or 3 times a year and the flights on any of the three days were always 90+% full. That was about 500 passengers per week into Tallinn. That's got to hurt the local economy?

Ryanair don't do politics, they do economics. If they're not getting a good enough deal from the airport, they'll do as they do here, reduce flights and call the airports bluff - the airport usually caves in, why change a winning formula?

Rasmus

100gSoma wrote: »

The flights from Dublin to Tallinn are now ONLY available for July and August in 2014. And.. They are 90-160euro EACH way. That means a return trip is about 200euro cheapest! Unbelievable. It used to be about 100euro return all year.
Very disappointing.

Even at that price it is still cheaper than alternatives. Ryanair will get their way if they want the route - but I don't think the Dublin Tallinn is even close to one of their more profitable routes.

100gSoma

schemingbohemia wrote: »

Ryanair don't do politics, they do economics.

Yes. I was suggesting that the Airport did not give Ryanair a 'deal' so they could instead keep SAS(parent) and Estonian Air(child) as the main route holders out of Tallinn. The Airline is state owned too.

Terre

What a shame this route has been reduced. I flew to Tallinn 3 times last year, and the plane was basically full every time. Appears now to be one of the dearest routes from Dublin.