Old / historic airline routes from Ireland

Mr. O

Can we have a catch-all thread for routes that used to serve Ireland?
All airports in Ireland including Derry, Belfast International and George Best.

I'm finding it difficult to search old routes from EIDW and other Irish airports. I've only been around for 26
years so don't have a huge memory of Irish routes past and gone.

I'd prefer if we omitted charter routes such as the one that I believe operated from Dublin to Montego Bay.

I'd love to see the reintroduction of the Dublin to Galway route and the Cork to Belfast one too. Galway could have been a
smashing airport, would you get an Avro on that runway? Or maybe a Dash 8?

What direct routes (includinng ones with stopover) served Ireland historically that you miss?

A319er

Dublin to Amman, the first Gulf carrier to serve Ireland
For the horses of course,

Then GF !

NW northwest Dublin Shannon Boston DTW !

ongarboy

Aeroflot used to fly from Shannon to Moscow and Havana back in the 80s/90s

L1011

Did RJ serve Dublin? They used SNN as a fuel stop for all their US routes until they got longer range aircraft.

SNN has the most interesting list of terminated destinations of any airport in Ireland if not Europe (Prestwick probably is the next closest). Scissor hub for Aeroflot; all sorts of mid-east airlines with traffic rights on one or both legs and virtually every major airport in the US at some point prior to the 747 era.

In 1996 Aeroflot were flying SNN-Tampa, Lima, Cuba, Bahamas, Barbados and Santiago (Chile) from Shannon with traffic rights

JCX BXC

Even nowadays Shannon gets some interesting routes. While not available for booking from Shannon, Kuwait currently operate a daily flight from Kuwait City to New York via Shannon, all passengers go through security clearance in Shannon.

BA1 LCY-SNN-JFK is another interesting route, as is Etophian routes from Ireland.

Nothing compares to the days of Aeroflot in Shannon though.

Chris_5339762

Mr. O wrote: »

Galway could have been a
smashing airport, would you get an Avro on that runway?

Yes, as far as I can remember, the old Galway - Waterford - Amsterdam route was served by an RJ85. Never got the chance to go on it, now that would have been a fun sightseeing flight.

It'd be nice to see a Cork - Belfast again and a feeder of some sort from Cork - Dublin run by Stobart.

TheDriver

Didn't AEr Lingus have a hub in Tarbes way back?

JCX BXC

TheDriver wrote: »

Didn't AEr Lingus have a hub in Tarbes way back?

Seems like a very Irish thing to do....;)

HTCOne

L1011 wrote: »

Did RJ serve Dublin? They used SNN as a fuel stop for all their US routes until they got longer range aircraft.

SNN has the most interesting list of terminated destinations of any airport in Ireland if not Europe (Prestwick probably is the next closest). Scissor hub for Aeroflot; all sorts of mid-east airlines with traffic rights on one or both legs and virtually every major airport in the US at some point prior to the 747 era.

In 1996 Aeroflot were flying SNN-Tampa, Lima, Cuba, Bahamas, Barbados and Santiago (Chile) from Shannon with traffic rights

Yeah Royal Jordanian 707s and A310s used to fuel stop in SNN until the mid 90s IIRC, then they got A342s which flew direct, subsequently replaced with B788s.

I think EI used to go DUB-SNN-YMX-ORD on either the 707 or 720?

The Aer Turas DC8s, used to go all over the shop.

Remember TransAer? A300s, A320s, DC8s, 727s, 737s, 757s all running simultaneously, no wonder they went bust.

Henry Ford III

ongarboy wrote: »

Aeroflot used to fly from Shannon to Moscow and Havana back in the 80s/90s

I flew Shannon - Miami with them a couple of times.

HTCOne

I flew with Aeroflot a couple of times too out of Shannon.

Interesting fact, EU and US aircraft had to be designed to withstand 150% of theoretical max loading on any structure, Russian aircraft had to be designed to withstand 200%. The result was the Russian aircraft had to be less dense seat wise because the aircraft were far heavier, meaning way more leg room.

They were great before IFE became a thing, but then when seatback TVs started coming in and the IL 96s etc didn’t get them Aeroflot became a pain the arse to fly with.

Back in the Soviet days, Shannon used to take payment from international carriers in US dollars, which the Soviet Union couldn’t do because A) Sanctions Capitalist Scum and C) They were always broke, so Aeroflot used to pay in Aviation fuel, so Pan Am, TWA etc were uplifting Soviet fuel in Shannon, don’t think anybody ever told them...

Comhrá

I recall LOT flying their IL62s through Shannon reguarly back in the 70s and 80s.

I can remember SP-LAC regularly transiting SNN specifically for some reason. Not sure where they flew from or to, maybe Warsaw - SNN - JFK? Someone might confirm?

L1011

TheDriver wrote: »

Didn't AEr Lingus have a hub in Tarbes way back?

They had a mini-hub of sorts in Manchester at one stage, some continental destinations were served from there (with traffic rights - only reason to do this really as there were no range issues) and fed from DUB/SNN. Not sure if ORK was open yet.


The early 00s Irish startups are something to remember with, well, trepidation that someone will think there's enough of a boom now to do it again. Skynet, Eirjet, EUJet and most likely to be copied - JetMagic. High CASM regional jets from a secondary airport to secondary airports just because city breaks were popular!

smurfjed

Shannon really was a cool airport, i first went camping there almost 40 years ago. Apart from loads of Aeroflot flights, there was Cubana, Northwest Orient, Flying Tigers, Evergreen, TWA, Pan Am, Ports of Call, Saudia, Aer Turas with the Britannia and CL44 and an incredible amount of corporate traffic. The SRS operations office would tolerate us walking in to check their flight lists (Interesting to note that their operations counter is now in the local aviation museum).
We used to camp in a field right beside runway 24.
But to get back on topic, what about Club Air, IONA and Virgin...... does anyone remember that little airline that started in Waterford with a Embraer 110 Bandeirante called Ryanair? wonder what happened to them

Comhrá

I was working and living in Shannon in the early 70s and as well as smurfjed's list, I recall Capitol Airways, Transamerica and Overseas National with their huge DC-8-63s, taking the whole length of 024 to get airborne, with ear-splitting noise and smoky engines.

I also recall Gulfair and even Nigeria Airways doing training circuits with their VC10s at night-time. Deafeningly loud while I was trying to get to sleep.

Shannon was a plane-spotter's Heaven in those days.

smurfjed

Or watching the Aeroflot crews who stayed in a large house on the Ennis Road in Limerick, they were followed by KGB officers whenever they went shopping . (Or at least that was the story we were told :))
In those days the viewing balcony was still open so you could almost count each cow that was loaded onto the Libyan 707's.

robclay26

smurfjed wrote: »

Or watching the Aeroflot crews who stayed in a large house on the Ennis Road in Limerick, they were followed by KGB officers whenever they went shopping . (Or at least that was the story we were told :))
In those days the viewing balcony was still open so you could almost count each cow that was loaded onto the Libyan 707's.

There was an estate opposite the former Toyota garage with Aeroflot signs in them, ballycasey close? Knick named the Russian village.

Remember D.C.-10 of Gemini air cargo, African international D.C.-8’s, Lufthansa 747 F, cargo lux 747F, channel express A300 and Electra and the odd RJ 707F, what a noise!

funnyname

A couple I flew with from London to Shannon

AB Airlines (once had a promotion where you put in a bid for your flights)

Virgin Express

Never flew with EasyJet into Shannon but Ryanair soon priced them out of flying into the RoI.

TheDriver

I flew a good bit with jet magic, flawed biz model but made big guns notice ORK. Twas like a private jet

faoiarvok

HTCOne wrote: »

Back in the Soviet days, Shannon used to take payment from international carriers in US dollars, which the Soviet Union couldn’t do because A) Sanctions Capitalist Scum and C) They were always broke, so Aeroflot used to pay in Aviation fuel, so Pan Am, TWA etc were uplifting Soviet fuel in Shannon, don’t think anybody ever told them...

Was a documentary about Irish aviation history on RTÉ a few years back, the way it was told by one of the talking heads was that the US carriers were well aware where the fuel was from, but didn’t want to be told officially so they could plead ignorance.

Essentially, “we’ll take the fuel at the Soviet price, just don’t tell us where it’s from”

highlydebased

robclay26 wrote:

There was an estate opposite the former Toyota garage with Aeroflot signs in them, ballycasey close? Knick named the Russian village.

It's still known as the Russian village down there - the legacy they've left behind!!

x567

There were Belavia flights to Minsk from Shannon (can't remember where they went over the other side of the Atlantic); and the Manx flight to Manchester(?) - causing at least one Pax minx-up...

And wasn't there an Irish airline that tried to get a SNN to Moscow route going at some point a few years back?

Comhrá

x567 wrote: »

There were Belavia flights to Minsk from Shannon (can't remember where they went over the other side of the Atlantic); and the Manx flight to Manchester(?) - causing at least one Pax minx-up...

And wasn't there an Irish airline that tried to get a SNN to Moscow route going at some point a few years back?

That would have been Skynet. A fairly short-lived venture if I recall correctly.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=162378

EICVD

TAP, LOT, Tarom, Malev (to ATH as well as BUD), CSA, Aeroflot all flew to DUB in the not so distant past. Maersk from I think Billund, Braathens from Oslo, Gulf Air from Bahrain. BA Cityexpress to Gatwick with ATRs & RJ-100s before BA mainline with mostly a 737-500. Go served EDI & GLA before Ryanair ran them out of here. Estonian Air to Tallin, Air Baltic to Riga & Vilnius. A low cost Lithuanian airline, Star1 started DUB to Vilnius but they didn’t last long. Skyways used to fly an ERJ-145 to Stockholm for SAS.

From Waterford after Ryanair ended their flights Suckling flew a Do-228 to LTN, BA regional took it over with a J-41 before Euroceltic arrived with a few F-27s, almost sure they had a DUB route from WAT. Aer Arann flew to LTN & MAN from WAT & GWY, they could possibly have had a few more UK routes from the regional Irish airports, there was definitely a Sligo connection to DUB from that Euroceltic crowd, one of their Fokkers almost ended up in the Atlantic. Ryanair had a DUB-Kerry link.

Locker10a

I remember the hey day of Aer Arann, they had loads of domestic flights CFN-DUB, SXL-DUB, NOC-DUB, GWY-DUB, KIR-DUB, ORK-DUB. Aer Lingus did SNN-DUB and Ryanair later joined on ORK-DUB and KIR-DUB.
RE(Aer Arann) also sold connecting domestic flights. I remembered flying NOC-ORK with them, you entered the domestic “B” gates in DUB and changed planes there. Was faster and cheaper than the train or bus.
They had a great little hub in Galway, had multiple daily flights to DUB as well as serving most major cities in the U.K. as well as AMS, but I seem to also remember they did Malaga or Alicante on the jet from GWY too?

sandbelter

Some 1970's gems from departed flights,
AZ used to operate a SE210 seasonal service in 1972 FCO-LIN-MAN-DUB then overnight in Dublin before returning to FCO the next morning.    
PA used to operate JFK-SNN-LHR B707 service 5 times a week, and to JFK-SNN-STR twice a week also with a 707.
Here's Dublin in the 1983 OAG guide: http://www.departedflights.com/DUB83p1.html

And here's a PAN Am time table from 1970.   PA 79 B707
Mon/Fri  BEG-DUS-SNN-JFK
Wed/Sun  PRG-DUS-SNN-JFK
Tue/Thurs/Sun: TXL-HAM-SNN-JFK
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/pa/pa7004/pa704-06.jpg