Aer Lingus Regional cuts Waterford

charliehotel

Aer Arann, which operates as Aer Lingus Regional, is to terminate its services at Waterford Airport with effect from January 6 next.

The routes affected will be Aer Lingus Regional services from Waterford Airport to London Southend, London Luton and Manchester.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1105/aer-arann-to-end-waterford-services-business.html

eastmayo

Bad news for waterford..dose any other air line use the airport.

Neworder79

FlyBE have 1 route to Birmingham. Flying school and the SAR helicopter also based there.

cabincrewifly

PTC pilot college is basically bust...

I can see Flybe taking over Manchester but what will happen with Luton and Southend is anyone's guess.....

L1011

Flybe picked up Birmingham which was the lowest yield I believe. Could see them serving a London airport from here now at the least

More money feeding long haul for ei and codeshares from UK regions obviously!

cabincrewifly

You have to remember Flybe don't have a base in Luton or Southend so it would involve a W route from Birmingham eg BHX WAT LTN WAT BHX. Easier said then done.

L1011

Doesn't have to be ltn - don't they have a lgw base?

cabincrewifly

Yes that's true. They've a base at LGW. Flybe have cut back there because Gatwick are putting levies on landing fees for aircraft with less then 100 seats.

The biggest mistake the management made was cutting back the double daily Luton flights. That's where they made the €€€.

b757

cabincrewifly wrote: »

You have to remember Flybe don't have a base in Luton or Southend so it would involve a W route from Birmingham eg BHX WAT LTN WAT BHX. Easier said then done.

No point in having that either.

The airport needs 2 London flights daily, one early morning and one late flight. So a based A/C is needed, a "W" with MAN and BHX might work, if Flybe were to take over.

They used to fill 2 Atr 72's there two years back before they moved to SEN, and I believe it even went to 3 daily the route was doing so well. I didn't see the point in moving one of their best routes to Southend and they really shot themselves in the foot in doing so. (Galway base gone, now WAT..)

As for Manchester, yes the route was doing bad but the passenger numbers are way up from last year from looking at the CAA stats.

Really unexpected, thought BE would be gone if any were to go.

A319er

WAT-LTN/MAN/BHX/STN etc

RE plane based in Waterford is sold , not sure if RE sold it ir whoever owned the plane sold it..

So no plane no route , so either pull out or move a current busier plane from DUB/ORK/SNN to cover no plane in WAT, #

? Seems to me WAT wouldnt be able to beat current routes out of other ROI airports. Its a pity but annother carrier will arrive I am sure.

Storm 10

A319er wrote: »

WAT-LTN/MAN/BHX/STN etc
? Seems to me WAT wouldnt be able to beat current routes out of other ROI airports. Its a pity but annother carrier will arrive I am sure.

Dont hold your breath on another airline coming in look at Galway which was busier than Waterford and more routes yet when Aer Arann pulled out nothing came in to fill the gap

Joe 90

Storm 10 wrote: »

Dont hold your breath on another airline coming in look at Galway which was busier than Waterford and more routes yet when Aer Arann pulled out nothing came in to fill the gap

Don't forget that Galway was trying to rip everyone off big time. They even tried to charge people for flying in the general area.

A319er

I think GWY Airport closed becuase after RE they had no commercial viability
WAT has 24 SandR so will s tay open even for that plus BE so maybe more chance in the short term

I think regional airports probablyh overspent a bit during the boom years, with encouragemewnt from lenders and GVT of course , its a struggle of them now with the debts and now a deeper longer recession.

CFN SXL GWY and now WAT , tough business aviation.

Only leabes NOC KIR other than SNN ORK DUB , to survive , mind you Munster always did well with airports,triedto find out if anywhere else has or had so many airports for the core pop base, gave up

Kumsheen

Storm 10 wrote: »

Dont hold your breath on another airline coming in look at Galway which was busier than Waterford and more routes yet when Aer Arann pulled out nothing came in to fill the gap

I think the problem with GWY was more that it was poorly run and fell in to that celtic tiger mentality of relying on subsidies, vested interests, high salaries and councilors who wanted to maintain this cushy setup.

Waterford was a bit more independent and has a history of 5 different airlines serving London continually since 1985, even during very lean years.

I'd say a link to London will happen again.

mayfly1

Ya would tend to agree, however don't forget Galway got squeezed out between NOC and SHN, with longer runways, and Ryanair etc, and improving roads to Dublin....I would like to think Waterford can survive however it is arguably suffering from the same effect between Dublin and Cork, and improved motorway access to Dublin, and like all regionals it has been very dependent on receipt of gov operational funding, over €1m per year as far as i know, and this is to discontinue after 2014, which means the airport needs to be self funding, which ultimately was the end of Galway, who received according to recent media commentary €2.3m operational funding in 2011 alone to keep airport open, before Aer Arann pulled out. Bottom line is without services, and passnegers airports will struggle to survive....

Neworder79

A319er wrote: »

Only leaves NOC KIR other than SNN ORK DUB , to survive

CFN is still there, Saab360 PSO to Dublin and a Glasgow positioning flight with FlyBE keeping it open despite terrible geographic location and closer proximity of population to Derry.

Growler!!!

A319er wrote: »

RE plane based in Waterford is sold , not sure if RE sold it ir whoever owned the plane sold it.

Have you a source for the above statement?

A319er

Hi yes

read it on waterford airport website yesterday and also pprune
saw other comments about the sold aircraft as other posters were asking if WAT closure would mean extra capacity ex ORK SNN or DUB or new capacity ex BHD“

It is clearly a blow to have key UK routes withdrawn in these particular circumstances and is especially disappointing given that the Aer Lingus Regional brand was only introduced at Waterford as recently as late March of this year – just over seven months ago. We were delighted to be working with the Aer Lingus brand but our understanding is that the decision arises from the sale of an aircraft by Aer Arann that necessitates them further cutting their route network.

qte from waterford website today