Aer Lingus Fleet/Routes Discussion

L1011

He's fishing for cheap new models from Airbus - it has zero chance of happening otherwise

L1011

Still think second hand 380s would be a cheaper option unless something major happened in the efficiency.

Refitting a widebody to (a different) full service carrier standards is very, very dear. There's a reason it's very rarely done even with smaller widebodies. It really damages the economics on second hand 380s

AndyBoBandy

I think I said something similar before, but it could be a nice marketing move by IAG to put some alternate liverys on some of the flagship aircraft in the various fleets, maybe a few A380's/787's in Aer Lingus or Iberia livery, getting some brand awareness at some BA only destinations, and vice versa with a few BA livery's on some AC that do only IB/EI/Vuelling routes etc.. just mix it all up a bit and get the various IAG brands out and about throughout the entire route network.
maybe leave the tail in original livery, or design a standard IAG tail livery..

Wishful thinking I know, but it's probably about the only hope of seeing an EI A380

Fattes

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

I think I said something similar before, but it could be a nice marketing move by IAG to put some alternate liverys on some of the flagship aircraft in the various fleets, maybe a few A380's/787's in Aer Lingus or Iberia livery, getting some brand awareness at some BA only destinations, and vice versa with a few BA livery's on some AC that do only IB/EI/Vuelling routes etc.. just mix it all up a bit and get the various IAG brands out and about throughout the entire route network.
maybe leave the tail in original livery, or design a standard IAG tail livery..

Wishful thinking I know, but it's probably about the only hope of seeing an EI A380

They operate as different brands, different target markets and segments. Cross branding would dilute that, as nice an idea as it is and as much as I like it. I cant see marketing types liking it.

Rawr

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

I think I said something similar before, but it could be a nice marketing move by IAG to put some alternate liverys on some of the flagship aircraft in the various fleets, maybe a few A380's/787's in Aer Lingus or Iberia livery, getting some brand awareness at some BA only destinations, and vice versa with a few BA livery's on some AC that do only IB/EI/Vuelling routes etc.. just mix it all up a bit and get the various IAG brands out and about throughout the entire route network.
maybe leave the tail in original livery, or design a standard IAG tail livery..

Wishful thinking I know, but it's probably about the only hope of seeing an EI A380

They could kind of 'cheat' a little and put these IAG widebodies in 'OneWorld' livery. That way you could float them around the different IAG fleets without generating *too* much confusion. (Assuming all of the IAG airlines become OneWorld members).

basill

I would say that is more likely in the medium to long term. There have been rumours going around of an IAG standard fit becoming commonplace on future new aircraft orders. This would allow standardisation and swapping within the various fleets. You could literally afix a sticker by the door to differentiate which airline it was. Paint the thing in one world, IAG or a basic white livery.

Foggy43

basill wrote: »

There have been rumours going around of an IAG standard fit becoming commonplace on future new aircraft orders. This would allow standardisation and swapping within the various fleets. You could literally afix a sticker by the door to differentiate which airline it was. Paint the thing in one world, IAG or a basic white livery.

Remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78CqcbwFeBA

basill

The Iron Lady versus Trump, now I would pay to see that!

Stovepipe

The problem with standardisation of cabin fits is that, unless it's a low-fares airline, then there's no such thing.Across a fleet, there will be seats from different manufacturers, different galleys, different IFE kit and so on. Sometimes, an airline will lease in an aircraft and find that it has an incompatible cabin fit and will be a pain to maintain, so the aircraft gets moved on. It makes life difficult for maintenance and stores if there are even slight differences in galley and cabin fit, even down to individual boilers.

Captain_Crash

For future orders, the only difference in IAG cabins will be colours. You mention fittings and that there will be seats from different manufacturers, however; their wont. The point in having it all standardised is not just commonality, but also cost to acquire. Instead of buying 3000 seats for EI, IB and BA separately, they can buy 12000 seats from one place at a bigger discount. same applies to other cabin components.

Stovepipe

Honestly, it's been tried before but we have seats that came from an Iberia contract that we got lumped with, in two aircraft and we have at least three galley types and several variations of Recaro seats. It's not that easy to maintain commonality unless you are very disciplined during purchasing.

billy few mates

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

I think I said something similar before, but it could be a nice marketing move by IAG to put some alternate liverys on some of the flagship aircraft in the various fleets, maybe a few A380's/787's in Aer Lingus or Iberia livery, getting some brand awareness at some BA only destinations, and vice versa with a few BA livery's on some AC that do only IB/EI/Vuelling routes etc.. just mix it all up a bit and get the various IAG brands out and about throughout the entire route network.
maybe leave the tail in original livery, or design a standard IAG tail livery..

Wishful thinking I know, but it's probably about the only hope of seeing an EI A380

Man that is one ugly aircraft, that livery just does not work on that thing....

billy few mates

Captain_Crash wrote: »

For future orders, the only difference in IAG cabins will be colours. You mention fittings and that there will be seats from different manufacturers, however; their wont. The point in having it all standardised is not just commonality, but also cost to acquire. Instead of buying 3000 seats for EI, IB and BA separately, they can buy 12000 seats from one place at a bigger discount. same applies to other cabin components.

Imagine the savings that could be achieved across the group if they ever did decide to standardise the aircraft configurations and layouts. One galley type, one galley layout and one seat type. Cabin crews could operate any A/C in the group and cabin spares could be provisioned and controlled centrally with the economies of scale that would bring instead of having to be resourced from a multitude of different providers.

Tenger

Thats pretty much what was stated 12 months ago by IAG in the CMD presentation. Cabin layout/seats would remain airline specific but future deliveries will have standardised galleys, signage and equipment across each aircraft type.

No mention of centalised stores back then. But this years presentation did examine the overlap in engineering bases/expertise between 3 of the IAG airlines. (Vueling outsources all of theirs)

Razor44

I assume that EI are going to get a euro white style livery soon? In the way that IB did. If they want to switch a/c between the two I doubt theyll be respraying them, it would only make sense. Not that id be a fan of it.
I'd rather they just put on a green shamrock and details like ei-fcc

kevinandrew

Iberia's livery was near enough euro-white anyway before the recent update, I very much doubt moving aircraft about within the IAG fleet was a deciding factor in their brand update.


The Aer Lingus livery is likely to remain as it is, a complete rebrand was considered a couple of years ago but they instead opted to "refresh" the current brand. The CEO described Aer Lingus as an 80 year old airline with teenage tendencies and the brand certainly reflects the much younger and modern outlook it now has. Since the 'Smart Flies Aer Lingus' campaign began we've seen sharp, well produced advertising and marketing, a very active and on trend social media team and consistency in branding on the ground and in the air.


Wouldn't expect that to change any time soon.

billy few mates

Tenger wrote: »

Thats pretty much what was stated 12 months ago by IAG in the CMD presentation. Cabin layout/seats would remain airline specific but future deliveries will have standardised galleys, signage and equipment across each aircraft type.

No mention of centalised stores back then. But this years presentation did examine the overlap in engineering bases/expertise between 3 of the IAG airlines. (Vueling outsources all of theirs)

So no real opportunity for savings with cabin furnishing commonality there then...

billy few mates

kevinandrew wrote: »

Iberia's livery was near enough euro-white anyway before the recent update, I very much doubt moving aircraft about within the IAG fleet was a deciding factor in their brand update.


The Aer Lingus livery is likely to remain as it is, a complete rebrand was considered a couple of years ago but they instead opted to "refresh" the current brand. The CEO described Aer Lingus as an 80 year old airline with teenage tendencies and the brand certainly reflects the much younger and modern outlook it now has. Since the 'Smart Flies Aer Lingus' campaign began we've seen sharp, well produced advertising and marketing, a very active and on trend social media team and consistency in branding on the ground and in the air.


Wouldn't expect that to change any time soon.

Is it just me or does anyone else think the current "Smart lies Aer Lingus" advertising and marketing campaign to be one of the most uninspired and irritating ads on the airwaves at the moment?
For the life of me I can't see anything clever in the bloke from the Brady's ham ad just sticking "smart flies Aer Lingus" at the end of every statement, surely they could come up with something a bit more interesting than this?

Noxegon

Every time I hear one of the ads I think "Smart omits words sentences."

kevinandrew

billy few mates wrote: »

kevinandrew wrote: »

Iberia's livery was near enough euro-white anyway before the recent update, I very much doubt moving aircraft about within the IAG fleet was a deciding factor in their brand update.


The Aer Lingus livery is likely to remain as it is, a complete rebrand was considered a couple of years ago but they instead opted to "refresh" the current brand. The CEO described Aer Lingus as an 80 year old airline with teenage tendencies and the brand certainly reflects the much younger and modern outlook it now has. Since the 'Smart Flies Aer Lingus' campaign began we've seen sharp, well produced advertising and marketing, a very active and on trend social media team and consistency in branding on the ground and in the air.


Wouldn't expect that to change any time soon.

Is it just me or does anyone else think the current "Smart lies Aer Lingus" advertising and marketing campaign to be one of the most uninspired and irritating ads on the airwaves at the moment?
For the life of me I can't see anything clever in the bloke from the Brady's ham ad just sticking "smart flies Aer Lingus" at the end of every statement, surely they could come up with something a bit more interesting than this?

It comes with a far stronger message than the previous attempts or have we forgotten gems such as "Enjoy your flight" or "Great fare, great care" which must tie for worst ever. Even if the "Low fares, way better" era was a little tacky, it had more impact than the two the that followed because of the bold message it had and how they marketed it. Ryanair's current tagline is very similar in terms of styling and meaning.

Personally I don't have the grammatical issues with it that some others appear to be quite vocal about, I understand the context, the message it's sending and that in marketing it's not unusual to see a play on words. It's not just about the tagline either, the overall campaign is well thought out and the box ticking choices is quite clever in my opinion, the ticking of the box next to Heathrow, London instead of Stansted, Essex for example.

It's easy to work the tagline and campaign into current events as well, it's been used with the US election, popular TV shows and the rugby sponsorship which helps keep the brand "on trend" and relevant.

Mebuntu

billy few mates wrote: »

Is it just me or does anyone else think the current "Smart lies Aer Lingus" advertising and marketing campaign to be one of the most uninspired and irritating ads on the airwaves at the moment?
For the life of me I can't see anything clever in the bloke from the Brady's ham ad just sticking "smart flies Aer Lingus" at the end of every statement, surely they could come up with something a bit more interesting than this?

No, it's not just you. Irritating isn't strong enough a word and I would add "arrogant". On top of all that they've ruined for ever one of my all-time favourite tunes!

billy few mates

Mebuntu wrote: »

No, it's not just you. Irritating isn't strong enough a word and I would add "arrogant". On top of all that they've ruined for ever one of my all-time favourite tunes!

There's just something about it that really grates on my nerves, as soon as I hear the intro music I just switch off or switch over, whatever the message they're trying to get across, I don't want to know.
I don't have anything against Aer Lingus and I'd choose them every time ahead of Ryanair but by God that current ad is just to tedious to bear. There is a certain arrogant undertone in the whole concept of the campaign, "we fly to X, Y and Z because we're really clever, and if you choose us you can be as clever as us" , that's how it comes across to me, and that's not the reason I choose to fly Aer Lingus, they have so much more to offer than that.
It's like the Homestore and More campaign 'when it's gone it's gone' or the shouty Harvey Norman ads, instant turnoffs for me.

Locker10a

billy few mates wrote: »

Mebuntu wrote: »

No, it's not just you. Irritating isn't strong enough a word and I would add "arrogant". On top of all that they've ruined for ever one of my all-time favourite tunes!

There's just something about it that really grates on my nerves, as soon as I hear the intro music I just switch off or switch over, whatever the message they're trying to get across, I don't want to know.
I don't have anything against Aer Lingus and I'd choose them every time ahead of Ryanair but by God that current ad is just to tedious to bear. There is a certain arrogant undertone in the whole concept of the campaign, "we fly to X, Y and Z because we're really clever, and if you choose us you can be as clever as us" , that's how it comes across to me, and that's not the reason I choose to fly Aer Lingus, they have so much more to offer than that.
It's like the Homestore and More campaign 'when it's gone it's gone' or the shouty Harvey Norman ads, instant turnoffs for me.

I agree about Homestore and more and Harvey Norman being off putting, I don't find the Aer Lingus one to be off putting though and I wouldn't class it in the same annoying category, but all of these mentioned adds achieve one thing, brand awareness!! The very fact you could mention a few adds that annoy you in your comment prove that they worked! You may not like the style of add (nor do I) but they have done their jobs (annoyingly) !

Rawr

Has there been any more talk of those rumors a while ago about IE getting some "Jumbo Jets" from BA?

As mush as a 747 fan that I am, I know this is probably very far fetched, and that some people tend to attach the name "Jumbo Jet" to several wide-bodes, including the A380 (which might attach this rumor to what IAG have been suggesting regarding their plans for more A380s...).

However nonsensical the idea is, I still kind of love the idea of an IE 747-400...even if only for a few months. If there is any truth at all to those rumors, the only reason I can think of IE getting the old BA 747s, is as a stop-cat measure while they wait for more A330s to be delivered. Which would probably involve these veteran Jumbos being in the fleet for 1-2 years.

Again, I don't think these rumors were true...but I kind of really hope they are...just to satisfy my 747 fan-boyism (and no other business reason really ... I know there's very little business argument for running these very old gas-guzzlers.)

Marcusm

Rawr wrote: »

Has there been any more talk of those rumors a while ago about IE getting some "Jumbo Jets" from BA?

As mush as a 747 fan that I am, I know this is probably very far fetched, and that some people tend to attach the name "Jumbo Jet" to several wide-bodes, including the A380 (which might attach this rumor to what IAG have been suggesting regarding their plans for more A380s...).

However nonsensical the idea is, I still kind of love the idea of an IE 747-400...even if only for a few months. If there is any truth at all to those rumors, the only reason I can think of IE getting the old BA 747s, is as a stop-cat measure while they wait for more A330s to be delivered. Which would probably involve these veteran Jumbos being in the fleet for 1-2 years.

Again, I don't think these rumors were true...but I kind of really hope they are...just to satisfy my 747 fan-boyism (and no other business reason really ... I know there's very little business argument for running these very old gas-guzzlers.)

Can't see it; although BA has deferred retirement plans for most of its remaining B744s, many have been returned to super High J (i.e. Lots of business class) and are very highly utilised on suitable routes where high capacity is required such as JFK, HKG etc.

Mebuntu

Locker10a wrote: »

but all of these mentioned adds achieve one thing, brand awareness!! The very fact you could mention a few adds that annoy you in your comment prove that they worked!

I wouldn't agree with that in relation to airlines. Everyone here already knows about the brands called Ryanair and Aer Lingus. People will either have a favourite that they stick to or check each time to see which suits best for their next flight. BA/CityJet could come into the reckoning for some.

However, when one of the airlines has something special to advertise like a flash sale or early T/A fares then an ad for such will have much more impact at that time and people will perk up on hearing. The constant drolling out day after day several times a day about being "Smart" or "Low fares" is mostly a waste of money.

nsa0bupkd3948x

Glad I'm not the only one who can't stand the Aer Lingus marketing. I've actively avoided no nonsense + harvey norman and Aer Lingus are very close to being added to the list. I know I'm probably on my own with how far I take it but spent an extra €20 to fly Ryanair ahead of EI cause I can't stand their ads.

Don't get me started on "Aer Bridge" Whoever thought that was a good idea should be locked up.

Locker10a

Mebuntu wrote: »

Locker10a wrote: »

but all of these mentioned adds achieve one thing, brand awareness!! The very fact you could mention a few adds that annoy you in your comment prove that they worked!

I wouldn't agree with that in relation to airlines. Everyone here already knows about the brands called Ryanair and Aer Lingus. People will either have a favourite that they stick to or check each time to see which suits best for their next flight. BA/CityJet could come into the reckoning for some.

However, when one of the airlines has something special to advertise like a flash sale or early T/A fares then an ad for such will have much more impact at that time and people will perk up on hearing. The constant drolling out day after day several times a day about being "Smart" or "Low fares" is mostly a waste of money.

You say that... but it must work! Why else would they do it!!
You and I may have our carriers of choice etc but not everyone does! Young people in particular in my experience tend to go straight to the likes of Ryanair or easyJet when planning travel! I know many friends who do this and don't even bother pricing the competition, advertising like this is a reminder to those people to check the competition too, and as i said, if it didn't work they wouldn't be doing it

Mebuntu

Locker10a wrote: »

You say that... but it must work! Why else would they do it!!

How do they know it works?

If it is one of the two examples I gave (flash sale or early T/A fares) the subsequent rush of bookings is a definite pointer to the success of the ad. On everyday ads there is no way to see whether or not today's salvos brought in any new bookings that wouldn't have happened without them. If Aer Lingus (or Ryanair) dropped the every day every hour ad I would be very surprised if it made the slightest difference because in today's world people will travel with them anyway.

Of course, all of this is in the context of ads broadcast in Ireland only which is what we are talking about. The value of such ads in other countries would be different.

kevinandrew

Is Aer Lingus really running adverts all day, everyday on every platform?!

They usually go through campaign cycles, a major campaign will only last a month or two with tv, radio, print and online adverts running at the same, a good example of this is when they launched "Smart Flies" which was actually very successful in terms initial response and later feedback. Smaller campaigns attached to sales or seasonal schedule releases run much shorter and feature less coverage.

Never heard of an airline with blanket advertising coverage, especially not Aer Lingus with their media budget!

Anyway, bit off topic now...