Aer Lingus Fleet/Routes Discussion

goingnowhere

EI-LAX back flying, EI125 to ORD, seems to be on time

EC-LZO flew in as EI991 but no record of departing, possibly as insurance if EI-LAX wasn't ready?

GCF, DUZ, LAX and ELA are all flying

vectorvictor

Mebuntu wrote: »

The hired-in Privilege 763 returned to Madrid yesterday afternoon. It arrived back in DUB at 14.08 this afternoon - per flightradar24.

Looking at how the likes of Privilege operate it's hard to see how they could be anything other than extorniate prices for EI.

To start op's last week they positioned in from Vilnius. Hopped down to Mad yesterday and back up today with nothing in between. Understand crew changes but surely be cheaper to position their crews on sched flights unless EI are giving them no guidance and chartering at T minus 180 everytime

goingnowhere

Flight cancellation,

300pax
600 euro EC261
=180,000
+ cost of reaccommodation on a another carrier as EI will have little or no spare capacity on other flights
+ hotel and board for those delayed

*2 as the return will be cancelled as well

Only saving EI makes
1. Not having to fill the tanks up, 40 tons for a long sector

So hiring in, isn't really that expensive

JCX BXC

goingnowhere wrote: »

Flight cancellation,

300pax
600 euro EC261
=180,000

Realistically, how many of those 300 pax will actually claim compo? I'd say it's only a fraction of the pax on board.

Trampas

Idiot question but why do they go to charter companies. Surely ba have a spare plane hanging around and crew on stand by

vectorvictor

Trampas wrote: »

Idiot question but why do they go to charter companies. Surely ba have a spare plane hanging around and crew on stand by

Don't think it's an idiot question. You would think that IAG would have one or two standby units for cover on a group level.

Or maybe just buy Privilege - might work out cheaper at this rate!

Stephen Strange

BA have had to wet lease aircraft this summer due to Dreamliner issues and to cover the Monarch slots at LGW that they purchased, so they seem fairly tight on aircraft too.

Jamie2k9

JCX BXC wrote: »

Realistically, how many of those 300 pax will actually claim compo? I'd say it's only a fraction of the pax on board.

Perhaps not all but all passenger will get EI vouchers for 300-500 quid regardless and it will cost them future revenue.

Looking at how the likes of Privilege operate it's hard to see how they could be anything other than extorniate prices for EI.

To start op's last week they positioned in from Vilnius. Hopped down to Mad yesterday and back up today with nothing in between. Understand crew changes but surely be cheaper to position their crews on sched flights unless EI are giving them no guidance and chartering at T minus 180 everytime

Would expect the flight to/from MAD today was a case of the lease ending and EI felt they needed them again last minute rather than a crew change. If it was a simple crew change the the fee EI agreed from day one would have covered the costs unless it was a operational decision for the lessor which they may have to bear the cost (out of the profit).

billy few mates

goingnowhere wrote: »

Flight cancellation,

300pax
600 euro EC261
=180,000
+ cost of reaccommodation on a another carrier as EI will have little or no spare capacity on other flights
+ hotel and board for those delayed

*2 as the return will be cancelled as well

Only saving EI makes
1. Not having to fill the tanks up, 40 tons for a long sector

So hiring in, isn't really that expensive

They'll be paying for the fuel as well and also the costs of the positioning flights will be factored into the price.
Short notice ACMI charters can be costly, particularly for long haul operations but the alternative can be even more costly in the long term. Along with the hassle of having to position an aircraft and crew to operate a flight at short notice, they may also have to dead-head a crew to the destination airport to operate the return sector and then possibly dead-head the original crew back to their home base.

sherology

It is odd IAG don't have a few older ex-BA 767/757s kept aside and 'available' for cover. One would have thought this is what a 'group' of airlines could effectively achieve as a benefit to the airlines inside that group.

Good to hear the EI fleet is back. It's odd how annual this multi-craft-down has become. Luck of the Irish... Not.

EI need to go back to the 10-15yr old frame replacement cycles of the past if they want to maintain their 4* rating, and with 330s slow selling right now and at very favourable costs... Odd they haven't ordered a full multi-annual neo replacement of the current a330 fleet starting with the older 200's. They have proven their ability to make large ROIs on their fleet. A350s likely too much airplane for EIs needs.

sherology

sherology wrote: »

It is odd IAG don't have a few older ex-BA 767/757s kept aside and 'available' for cover. One would have thought this is what a 'group' of airlines could effectively achieve as a benefit to the airlines inside that group.

Good to hear the EI fleet is back. It's odd how annual this multi-craft-down has become. Luck of the Irish... Not.

EI need to go back to the 10-15yr old frame replacement cycles of the past if they want to maintain their 4* rating, and with 330s slow selling right now and at very favourable costs... Odd they haven't ordered a full multi-annual neo replacement of the current a330 fleet starting with the older 200's. They have proven their ability to make large ROIs on their fleet. A350s likely too much airplane for EIs needs.

Biggest issues I imagine are justifying the cost to shareholders of having a small inefficient mini fleet sitting around costing large amounts of money with fully trained up and qualified crew and cabin crew waiting to go. Technically for the airlines I imagine that they are happy for he ACMIs to take that risk plus they are likely to be happy to pay the ACMIs to do it.

The problem is while the 330’s are still returning great ROI they airlines won’t be keen to be investing in newer aircraft until their hands start being forced either through higher fuel costs or increased maintenance costs and operating costs. Unfortunately we are living in an age where companies only care about profits, they’ll dress certain improvements up as for their customers which some are but the idea will be to drive greater profits at the end of the day.

goingnowhere

With the exception of ELA at its engine problem, all the issues last week appear to have been to down to ramp damage, which on a A350 would probably be a bigger problem as its a carbon fibre body and not good old aluminum.

LAX and EWR will need to be replaced, that said LAX historically has been a very reliable frame but it keeps getting whacked by ground equipment, its still 2 years younger than a good part of BA's 777 fleet. EWR is leased.

In fact most of the downtime in the fleet has been due to matters outside EI's control, remember the MCO cargo loader fire? The ground handlers in SFO whacking the terminal building. I'd call bad luck (and someone else was paying). The engine failure on LAX in 2017, no. 2 Engine air duct failure.

Talk of 2 more A330's next year, new or from Qatar? who knows but only new A330-300 will do otherwise its A330-200 second hand. It goes without saying its a lot cheaper buy a A330 than a A350 and its a known quantity

IAG needs to sort out a pool of both short haul (A320) and long haul (Iberia and its A340? you can be dual certified for A330/A340) for cover. The current Dreamliner situation and BA and Monarch slots means everything is tied up

Razor44

I can't help but think at this point EI have to be damaging their brand with all the messing with TA ops. There was a full page article in the Irish Times on Sunday (the business section?) about complaints etc "flying in". I know the market for EI is bigger than Ireland, but still, this cant be doing them any good.

The staffing issues that we keep hearing of certainly don't help them at all, I wonder when this will start to have a bigger effect on ops. Its pretty clear that even joe public is aware of this now, with the issues with customer service both in airports and on the helpline, i.e never being able to get anyone, and staffing levels on flights and also the cleaning of aircraft, not to mention the Aer CLub debacle. I've always found that this stuff is fine for a period of time, with people/customers overlooking it, but there always comes a time when the little things add up to do serious brand damage.

On the covering aircraft thing, it is odd that with EI part of IAG they can't access, or make a case for spare frames to cover their summer ops, it's not like the evidence to justify such a plan is lacking. It would seem to suggest some issues at management level regards customer service/ brand protection Vs cost vs profits.

Karl8415

Razor44 wrote: »

I can't help but think at this point EI have to be damaging their brand with all the messing with TA ops. There was a full page article in the Irish Times on Sunday (the business section?) about complaints etc "flying in". I know the market for EI is bigger than Ireland, but still, this cant be doing them any good.

The staffing issues that we keep hearing of certainly don't help them at all, I wonder when this will start to have a bigger effect on ops. Its pretty clear that even joe public is aware of this now, with the issues with customer service both in airports and on the helpline, i.e never being able to get anyone, and staffing levels on flights and also the cleaning of aircraft, not to mention the Aer CLub debacle. I've always found that this stuff is fine for a period of time, with people/customers overlooking it, but there always comes a time when the little things add up to do serious brand damage.

On the covering aircraft thing, it is odd that with EI part of IAG they can't access, or make a case for spare frames to cover their summer ops, it's not like the evidence to justify such a plan is lacking. It would seem to suggest some issues at management level regards customer service/ brand protection Vs cost vs profits.

Just wondering on the talk of stand by frames within the iag group,if you look at BA just now they are coming to the end of retiring the last 5 x 767’s which is not to far away,all 5 are configured 259 economy,which is not bad capacity so having said that if there was a case to use 1 or 2 of these on a stand by basis could iag approach their partners in the group and say if ye want these aircraft as back up everyone must contribute to cost of it or is that a dumb comment because they would have cost of not only parking them but maintaining them and keeping crew up to speed on this aircraft type,if you look over the last 4 weeks for example how much have EI forked out for hire-ins while sum of the 330’s were out of service,I read before that iag allow airlines within the group to have a certain level of independence so this is why I’m asking to see if someone has better insight on this issue

Would the cost of keeping frames maintained and crews available offset the cost of hire ins used though. I would doubt it personally.

Van.Bosch

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Would the cost of keeping frames maintained and crews available offset the cost of hire ins used though. I would doubt it personally.

I agree, if it was worth it IAG etc. Would do it, it’s not as if they haven’t thought of it.

Karl8415

The reason why I mentioned it was based on the figures mentioned yesterday that EI were paying out approximately €180,000 per TA hire-in,how many of those payouts have been made in 2018,never mind the last few weeks and with the exception of that 777 that covers there’s a 763 makes a lot of coverage,so with BA having 5 left in the fleet wud iag say to all the airlines in the group that if they want x amount of as coverage then all airlines must contribute towards it and then the aircraft is there for everyone,because I think BA have a few 777’s due,so is it as a 777 arrives to BA they’ll offload a 763 however I do agree with previous comment that iag have explored it

EchoIndia

BA are retiring the last of their 767s completely from their fleet after the best part of 30 years. This will allow (and I am sure this is already thoroughly planned) the relevant crews, maintenance resources and other support activities for them to be reassigned elsewhere in the company as replacement equipment arrives. The idea that they would retain a reserve fleet of such elderly machines (with all of the costs that would entail) on top of whatever limited contingency is already built-in to their operations is not credible to me.

As others have said, BA is already using hired-in capacity from Qatar Airways and others, as a quick perusal of the BA Source blog will attest. http://thebasource.com/

Aer Lingus's long-haul fleet has never been so tightly-tasked and to some extent they have been the victim of bad luck. However the fleet is probably at or approaching the size where some explicit slack should be built-in to facilitate recovering from accumulated delays and even on occasion an aircraft being out of service for a short period. This is probably a lot easier to achieve for carriers of the size of AF/BA/LH who can do some reorganising across a much larger fleet, when compared to a carrier with a total long-haul fleet of only 17 machines, of three different types/variants.

NewApproach

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Would the cost of keeping frames maintained and crews available offset the cost of hire ins used though. I would doubt it personally.

Why would they need spare crews, assuming the spare aircraft is the same type as the wider fleet?

Don’t forget to factor in insurance and other liable parties paying for the hire in when they’re responsible for damage causing a hire in. It’s not always EI coughing up.

NewApproach

Somewhat surprising that IAG don’t have spare aircraft centrally to deploy as necessary. The scale is surely there.

NewApproach

NewApproach wrote: »

Why would they need spare crews, assuming the spare aircraft is the same type as the wider fleet?

767 as suggested by others isn’t same type rating. EI crew aren’t rated for 340. BA doesn’t fly 330’s. Only the EI and IB 330’s are the same aircraft type.

Where are the spare planes based, Madrid/London/Dublin ? It may take time to get them ready to fly, they may also be in the wrong station to where they are required. The crews may be out of hours by the time the plane is ready to fly and then complete the trip. Even the ones on standby at the airport may have timed out by the time the call to go comes in.

NewApproach

NewApproach wrote: »

Somewhat surprising that IAG don’t have spare aircraft centrally to deploy as necessary. The scale is surely there.

I’d say BA do. Certainly they rarely are shown using hire ins to my knowledge for long haul outside of current 787 issues. The amount of day stoppers sitting at the maintenance base at Heathrow is unreal. I’d say they can quite easily juggle around their aircraft when issues arise within their operation. I’d say in time we will possibly see them loaning an aircraft for a trip or two.

vectorvictor

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I’d say BA do. Certainly they rarely are shown using hire ins to my knowledge for long haul outside of current 787 issues. The amount of day stoppers sitting at the maintenance base at Heathrow is unreal. I’d say they can quite easily juggle around their aircraft when issues arise within their operation. I’d say in time we will possibly see them loaning an aircraft for a trip or two.

Most likely. The "A very British airline" tv show, whilst broadly tabloid TV, gave a quick insight into fleet planning and how they juggle irops

john boye

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I’d say BA do. Certainly they rarely are shown using hire ins to my knowledge for long haul outside of current 787 issues. The amount of day stoppers sitting at the maintenance base at Heathrow is unreal. I’d say they can quite easily juggle around their aircraft when issues arise within their operation. I’d say in time we will possibly see them loaning an aircraft for a trip or two.

Would there be any objections from EI staff to having BA crewing EI routes at short notice? I know EI operated some BA sh this year but that was arranged in advance

vectorvictor

john boye wrote: »

Would there be any objections from EI staff to having BA crewing EI routes at short notice? I know EI operated some BA sh this year but that was arranged in advance

No more or less so than Omni, Privilege or Titan rocking up.

Now if a BA jet landed to take over LAX on a constant basis I would say the airport roundabout would be occupied once again.

Karl8415

john boye wrote: »

Would there be any objections from EI staff to having BA crewing EI routes at short notice? I know EI operated some BA sh this year but that was arranged in advance

Your spot on,DVE done the bulk of the BA covering that time,here to London and out to Germany then,what ever individuals feelings are on that I personally think at the end of the day they are owned by the same parent company now so the better each individual airline do then the better iag do which in turn will give that same airline the support it needs to grow just like EI has grown since joining iag,4 x brand new A330-300’s plus a secondhand A330-200,rumoured 2 more joining next year,that is if these new TA routes for 2019 ever get announced

billy few mates

How many of us when we buy a new car buy another car in case the first one breaks down..?
Not too many of us I’d imagine. I’d also imagine many of us already have a second (or third) car in the house which with a bit of flexibility among the other drivers in the family we could probably use in the event the first car broke down. On the odd day when the other cars can’t be used we could always get a taxi or maybe even hire a car...
The airline business is the same, it’s all about managing the risk and taking the hit and while something like a couple of unscheduled ACMI hire ins might seem horrendously expensive they’re actually not when you weigh it up against the cost of having a spare aircraft lying around “in case” you might need it. Most airlines could probably cover an AOG by a bit of creative rescheduling but you can’t (and shouldn’t) really plan for multiple AOGs at the same time, it makes no financial sense. And in the event an airline happens to have a couple of spare aircraft lying about then they’re probably not ‘sweating the assets’ sufficiently enough to maximise their revenue generating abilities. Operating aircraft is an expensive business when you factor in lease costs, maintenance, parking, crewing, depreciation, operating and crewing costs and it isn’t really that much cheaper to have them parked up as they still need maintenance. From a financial standpoint it makes far more sense to take the hit for a hire in than keep a spare in most cases.
There are some operators who do have spare aircraft on standby (some large cargo ops for example) but these are often due to penalty clauses in their contracts or for reputational reasons, BA also had a hot spare aircraft to cover Concorde flights because Concorde passengers didn’t take too well to having a three hour delay on what should have been a three and a half hour flight for which they’d paid a massive premium, they were even less happy if they found they’d been bumped to a normal subsonic aircraft.
The idea that the parent group could manage the economy of scale by having a standby aircraft the airlines within the group could share is not as straightforward as you might think and mostly for regulatory reasons. Quite often the airlines within the group are based in different countries governed by different NAAs with differing rules and requirements. Also for operational and insurance purposes even a fully qualified pilot on type with one operator can’t operate the exact same aircraft for another group airline without completing that operators own specific type course training and assessment or Operator Conversion Course (OCC) and even if they could do it they would have to keep it current which would make it even more expensive. It makes no sense to spend a lot of money training for something that might not happen or might not happen often enough to justify the cost.

Mebuntu

billy few mates wrote: »

How many of us when we buy a new car buy another car in case the first one breaks down..?

A laughable analogy, really - comparing individuals, many on a shoestring budget, to a company with contractual obligations to transport 300+ people a throw (600+ if you count the cancelled return flight) over a distance of from 3,000-5,000 miles.

Van.Bosch

Mebuntu wrote: »

A laughable analogy, really - comparing individuals, many on a shoestring budget, to a company with contractual obligations to transport 300+ people a throw (600+ if you count the cancelled return flight) over a distance of from 3,000-5,000 miles.

And buying a spare car is a ratio of 1:1, people are suggesting IAG buy 1 to cover a fleet of about 500.