Aer Lingus cancelling Vilnius?

quikquest

Hi,

Tried to google but can't find any news on it (all flight searching pages coming up)

Does anyone know if Aer Lingus has cancelled flying to Vilnius for good? Well for the rest of winter and summer? And the reason?

Also Wizz Air seems to have stopped flying there from Cork?

Thanks

Bessarion

Have you looked at the 'flight schedules' section of the AerLingus.com site?

http://www.aerlingus.com/cgi-bin/obel01im1/bookonline/timeTables.do


Shows operating up until mid-January. Showing no flight in March/April.

IngazZagni

Yeah the flight is cancelled from next week. Wizz Airs cork route is cancelled as of this week.

Sector length is quite long (higher operating costs) and the passenger numbers may just not be there or pax not willing to pay higher fares. Also they have competition of both routes with Ryanair. With the Cork route FR have been offering cut throat prices to throw Wizz off the routes ...maybe it's working?

roundymac

Yes, and you can expect FR to increase prices after that, then turn around and say the routes are not viable and drop them while at the same time saying that they reserve the right to return at a later stage; ie; if any one else should think about operating the route we [FR] will go head to head with them.:mad:

quikquest

Oh no

Thanks for the replies - was hoping Aer Lingus were only doing this temporarily.

That's what I was afraid of. I remember flights to Riga used to be cheap (with Ryanair) when Ryanair was competing with Air Baltic, then they pulled and fares went WAY up.

Now I fear the same is going to happen on this route.

I wish WIZZ AIR would come to Dublin but can't see this happening - love flying with them.

devnull

To be fair through FR are not the only ones doing this, there are some routes in many countries where flag carriers used to be very expensive, around 100 euro per flight yet as soon as a low cost airline launched they came down very quickly after that. A monopoly is not good if any airline has it as it always means prices are pushed up.

The problem I have with Wizz is for charging for a standard hand luggage which was recently brought in, I hope that other airlines do not follow. Also they are not as punctual as Ryanair and if there is a plane fault, recovery time is much longer as a friend of mine found out. If they did open a base in Western Europe though this would help them. The trouble now is they have to fly a crew or plane out from East Central Europe or East Europe.

quikquest

I have heard that alright about Wizz Air and their confusing new baggage rules. I only used them a few times from Eindhoven to Vilnius and there were no issues.

I have flown back from Vilnius many many times and anytime i fly with Ryanair the plane is full to the brim.... yet when I fly home with Aer Lingus (leaves an hour later) it was always half empty. Must be the pricing that caused this as AL were always a little more expensive.

Gutted now as I have a feeling fairs will creep up with Ryanair

martinsvi

quikquest wrote: »

I have heard that alright about Wizz Air and their confusing new baggage rules. I only used them a few times from Eindhoven to Vilnius and there were no issues.

I have flown back from Vilnius many many times and anytime i fly with Ryanair the plane is full to the brim.... yet when I fly home with Aer Lingus (leaves an hour later) it was always half empty. Must be the pricing that caused this as AL were always a little more expensive.

Gutted now as I have a feeling fairs will creep up with Ryanair

I know what you're talking about, as I'm a frequent traveller to Riga. Lately I've found that it is cheaper to actually go with Lufthansa via Frankfurt than book a direct flight with Ryanair. Connection times are good, and lufthansa provides comfort and treats you like a human..

Stinicker

Ryanair went cut-throat in Cork against Wizzair and since Wizzair retreated Ryanair are now more expensive than Wizzair were when they had the monopoly there.

devnull

That is actually incorrect, the Irish Times article that was published on the subject didn't take into account the fact that about 10 days before Ryanair announced the routes, Wizz cut their prices by a decent chunk, no doubt on hearing about the possibility of some competition on such routes.

The flights still were not rip off expensive, more like 40-50 euro or so, but they were not anywhere near the 19.99 that the media portrayed them to be as that pricing only came in shortly before competition was announced.

In any case, just as a test, I took four airports that have monopolies from one airline or other and looked at the prices in February and March to see who exactly is making the most of it.

Vilinus (Ryanair Monopoly)
The vast majority of fares to Vilinus are 26.99 or 32.99. There is even the odd date for 21.00

Warsaw: (Ryanair Monopoly)
The vast majority of fares to Warsaw are 21.00 or 26.99, barely anything over that.

Wroclaw (Ryanair Monopoly)
The vast majority of fares to/from Wroclaw are 21.00 or 26.99, barely anything over that.

Poznan (Wizz Monopoly)
The vast majority of fares to/from Poznan are 37.99 and 47.99. One or two 27.99, odd one over 50 euro.

quikquest

Thanks for that. I just hope it stays that way.

I am just going by past experience when other airlines stopped Riga-Dublin .... the fairs almost trebled and have remained that way since (i.e the last 2 years)

So I hope that Ryanair keep the flights low to Vilnius and don't bump them up like they did with Riga.

I used to fly to Vilnius with Ryanair going from Dub-Oslo then Oslo-Kaunas and it would cost €6.00 to Oslo wait 4 hours and then €6.00 to Kaunas - but they changed their timetable to stop people doing this :mad:

Now with AL gone from Vilnius there is only 2 flights a week to Vilnius. Yes there are others to Kaunas but for some reason (even though its a hub) Dublin-Kaunas is usually much more expensive.

Fingers crossed the fairs stay in the €30-€60 bracket for Vilnius.