Goodbye Aer Lingus

Graham

end of the road wrote: »

fixed. yes, your right however, we must only use things that are provided on a commercial basis, and we must not have things for social reasons. they must all be proffit making for private shareholders

Like I said, perhaps you and your fellow countymen will take that into account next time you choose Ryanair to save €20. You don't get to have it both ways at the cost of a subsidy from the rest of the country.

54and56

end of the road wrote: »

thats what had to be payed to make the flights viable.

Of course it was, there were a lot of people on inflated wages to be paid in Aer Lingus before Ryanair came along and taught them a lesson in efficiency and low cost operation and in the process became one of the largest and most successful airlines in the world who just announced profits of €867m.

Graham

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Of course it was, there were a lot of people on inflated wages to be paid in Aer Lingus before Ryanair came along and taught them a lesson in efficiency and low cost operation and in the process became one of the largest and most successful airlines in the world who just announced profits of €867m.

By viable, I think what EOTR actually meant was that was the cost of maintaining routes that otherwise wouldn't be profitable because the general population chose an alternative carrier that didn't have the expense of maintaining a Heathrow link.

end of the road

Duck Soup wrote: »

I've never understood the logic of governments selling off profitable enterprises they own or have a controlling interest in, be it airlines or banks or whatever.

"The private sector will run it more efficiently." Like how efficiently they ran the banks, you mean? Every euro in profit that is made by a state run business is a euro less that has to be found out of taxation.

If it makes you lots of money, keep it. Why the fug sell?

votes, donations, cronies. you could have asked good old maggie about that when she was alive, she was a huge expert at it.

end of the road

kona wrote: »

I'm sure Ryanair would do that

i'm sure. at a cost

end of the road

BonkeyDonker wrote: »

If there were more profitable uses they would have used them by now - Aer Lingus have nothing stopping them from transferring the slots as things stand.

Cork has connections to both Amsterdam and Paris as well as Heathrow for onwards connections Eastbound, and indeed westbound. Shannon is just up the road with direct connections to America and onward from multiple airlines. The need for a connection to Heathrow should, like any other connection, be a commercial one, not one based on a twenty year old requirement.

these slots are a special case so need to be based on many requirements and not simply commercial ones

Graham

end of the road wrote: »

these slots are a special case so need to be based on many requirements and not simply commercial ones

How are they a special case, what particular high demand routes are only available via Heathrow?

delahuntv

chrysagon wrote: »

Iberia suffered major job losses though when they were taken over..

Iberia were way overstaffed and losing money - it was lose jobs and become profitable in an alliance or close down.

Aer lingus is fairly streamlined, profitable and need investment for growth. I can never understand the Irish "catastrophe syndrome" attitude of searching for negatives in even the most positive of deals.

vicwatson

Fine Gael sell sell sell

seamus

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

London has five airports so LHR isn't the bed all in end all, long haul feeder traffic has been moving to the likes of Paris, Amsterdam and the Middle East anyway.

I would have been very much all about saving the LHR slots, but having been through both London City and Gatwick recently, there's really feck all between them. Heathrow is still a million miles away from the city just like the rest of them.

We're an independent country on our own feet at this stage, it's not like air traffic in Ireland will collapse if EI don't have any flights into LHR.

The days of expensive short-haul are gone. Big companies are just as eager to use LGW as they are to use LHR provided that the price is right.

BenEadir wrote: »

New York has three international airports in close proximity. It is a much much bigger market than Dublin but I bet if the Govt relaxed the bureaucracy someone would invest in a modern functional airport to compete with DAB similar to how Glasgow and Glasgow Prestwick operate and they are only 40 miles apart.

"Much bigger market" is putting it mildly. New York on its own has five times the population of our entire island and sees 7 times the amount of tourism.

In reality we are very well resourced with one large airport in Dublin and the regional airports we have dotted around the place.

Yes, someone could put a small airport way out North Dublin or something which direct DART links, but ultimately you're not going to manage to reduce fares into the country by very much because it's not like DUB is bursting at the seams.

cml387

Surely if we do sell the 25% stake and get some dosh for tax cuts, is that not a good thing?

Some payback for the years we pumped money into what was then (in the past in fairness) an airline run for the benefit of the staff and high roller passengers who could afford the bloated fare.

end of the road

cml387 wrote: »

I think you're a bit confused here. Are you saying that the government interfered with the state controlled airline and stopped them getting new routes? Surely an argument for privatisation I would have thought.

for me, there is no argument for privatization of state services. private competition should come in on its own merrits at its own expence but the state alternative should remain

end of the road

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

The other airports are simply in the wrong locations. Airports need to serve a densley populated market where there is sufficient demand for high traffic. Knock, Shannon and to a lessor extent Cork don't have the market dynamics of greater Dublin. It's just an economic fact, not a Dublin Vs country thing.

there is no need for another airport in the greater dublin area. expansion of dublin airport is the way forward. knock aside, the other airports fit the requirements, all though knock has its uses

Graham

end of the road wrote: »

for me, there is no argument for privatization of state services. private competition should come in on its own merrits at its own expence but the state alternative should remain

Why?

You still haven't pinpointed a single LHR only route that's in high-demand by those multinational corporations you're so keen on protecting.

WheatenBriar

end of the road wrote: »

these slots are a special case so need to be based on many requirements and not simply commercial ones

Look...BA can't make enough on new routes as it is eg chengdu which they cut back
The plan is to ship Scottish and English regions pax tatl via Dub and that is good for Dub and good for EI

The slots are immaterial,most of them at uneconomic times for anything other than the Irish shuttle were they to be sold

As for Ork and Snn,IAG are committed for 7 years,and that's 7 years of opportunity to grow already profitable routes there
If that's not done it won't be IAG's fault or Aer Lingus's.

cml387

end of the road wrote: »

for me, there is no argument for privatization of state services. private competition should come in on its own merrits at its own expence but the state alternative should remain

Some services yes. But private competition has already entered the aviation industry in Ireland with tremendous success and is has a harp on the tail.

Luckily for us the EU forced the government to stop subsidizing Aer Lingus, and it has been of benefit to Aer Lingus as well.

end of the road

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Publicly run companies are almost always overstaffed and inefficient.

no they aren't. they have enough staff to ensure the operation can run all the time whatever the contingentsy. no company is "over staffed" they just need to be moved around to ensure each area has the right ballance.

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

If the Govt owned Iberia why did they prevent themselves going after a different market?

you will have to ask them

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Sorry but that's pure revisionist BS.

i'm not sorry, its not revisionist bs at all

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

The airline was a classic bloated public service run entity bleeding the taxpayer dry.

it wasn't.

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Privatisation turned an obese organisation into a slimmed down fit for purpose airline. End of.

not end of at all. no it didn't as it was a slim organization which was badly run. with good management it would have been fit for purpose. your nonsense has no basis and is just anti-public service, pro public service destructionist drivel.

end of the road

Graham wrote: »

Like I said, perhaps you and your fellow countymen will take that into account next time you choose Ryanair to save €20. You don't get to have it both ways at the cost of a subsidy from the rest of the country.

i don't use ryanair. i get to have it whatever i want at the cost of a subsidy as i'm paying toards that subsidy

Elmo

Aer Lingus would have been set up at a time when few private companies would have been willing to set up an airline, coupled with Nationalism in Europe at the time hence the setting up of British Airways and other European Airline. It was probably more important for Smaller countries to have a state owned airline.

As for selling it off, I would question the agreement reached by the government, if a Private airline can't fly into Shannon, it won't.

Graham

[QUOTE=end of the road;95643091as it was a slim organization which was badly run[/QUOTE]

Badly run by........... the public service.

cml387

end of the road wrote: »

i don't use ryanair. i get to have it whatever i want at the cost of a subsidy as i'm paying toards that subsidy

Can you give us an example of an efficient, well run state owned Irish transport service?

MIKEKC

Junkyard Cat wrote: »

Doesn't the state remain the largest share-holder though?

No Ryanair

Graham

end of the road wrote: »

i don't use ryanair. i get to have it whatever i want at the cost of a subsidy as i'm paying toards that subsidy

You keep trotting the old line out, Cork must maintain it's Heathrow links.

You still haven't been able to explain why.

Trotting out the old 'to maintain competitiveness for Cork' line if you aren't able to back it up does nothing for your argument.

Which connecting flights from Cork via LHR are you specifically afraid of loosing?

Any, any at all, or are you just going to keep the Cork needs the slots mantra going?

end of the road

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Of course it was, there were a lot of people on inflated wages to be paid in Aer Lingus

they weren't inflated wages at all. they were good wages for what the job entailed. they deserved every penny and still deserve every penny.

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Ryanair came along and taught them a lesson in efficiency and low cost operation

no they didn't as there was no lesson to be thought. Aer Lingus was at the time efficient for its operational requirements and has changed as its requirements changed. low cost operation means nothing as its 1 of a couple of markets the airline industry caters to.

cml387

MIKEKC wrote: »

No Ryanair

Indeed. Ryanair have a 30% stake, the largest single slice of the shareholding.

cml387

[QUOTE=end of the road;95643193
no they didn't as there was no lesson to be thought. Aer Lingus was at the time efficient for its operational requirements and has changed as its requirements changed. low cost operation means nothing as its 1 of a couple of markets the airline industry caters to.[/QUOTE]

The requirements that changed was competition from Ryanair. You really do seem to be tilting at windmills here.

cml387

[QUOTE=end of the road;95643193/
no they didn't as there was no lesson to be thought. Aer Lingus was at the time efficient for its operational requirements and has changed as its requirements changed. low cost operation means nothing as its 1 of a couple of markets the airline industry caters to.[/QUOTE]

The requirements that changed was competition from Ryanair. You really do seem to be tilting at windmills here.

end of the road

Graham wrote: »

By viable, I think what EOTR actually meant was that was the cost of maintaining routes that otherwise wouldn't be profitable because the general population chose an alternative carrier that didn't have the expense of maintaining a Heathrow link.

yes, the flights at that time weren't really viable without the prices being charged. as technology came on, airlines found the methods they needed to cater to different markets including the low cost market, flights became cheeper

Graham

cml387 wrote: »

The requirements that changed was competition from Ryanair. You really do seem to be tilting at windmills here.

+1

According to some we should just look back nostalgically at the good old days when airline staff were fantastically well compensated and a flight to the UK could be had for a fortnights wages :rolleyes:

cml387

end of the road wrote: »

yes, the flights at that time weren't really viable without the prices being charged. as technology came on, airlines found the methods they needed to cater to different markets including the low cost market, flights became cheeper

How did this "low cost market" come about? How did the "technology change" and what drove the "technology change".