Ireland and long haul leisure flights

Is it just me or do others feel that we are underserved in terms of long haul leisure flights ?

Our sum total is the occasional TUI flight to Cancun and Aer Lingus flight to Orlando. Where as most other European nations have huge long haul industries serving the Caribbean/America/Indian ocean regions.

I’ve always felt it was a bit odd or is it a case that Spain/Portugal etc are too close and too cheap to ignore.

Gaoth Laidir

We had the Britannia flight to Barbados back in the '90s too, and more recently wasn't there Cape Town? At least we have Hong Kong and Beijing starting next month.

the-island-man

My best guess is we are an island of about 6.5 million within an hours plane journey to one of the biggest airports in Europe (London Heathrow).

I'd say if there were a few charters during the winter they may be profitable but I don't think a seasonal or full year scheduled service would be self-sufficient.

Also, you'd have to consider that if the price were right families near Belfast, Knock, Shannon or Cork might just use their regional airports to get to London rather than traveling to Dublin airport as the journey time would be the same and they wouldn't have to consider parking charges.

BZ

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

We had the Britannia flight to Barbados back in the '90s too, and more recently wasn't there Cape Town? At least we have Hong Kong and Beijing starting next month.

Also had Aeroflot operate Barbados from SNN in 1995 with two IL-62s.

newcavanman

The way people seem tobe getting back to Celtic Tiger lifestyles and expectations, it wont be long before the exotic long haul flights begin

basill

People vote with their feet. Very little demand. Sure it would be a spotters delight to have flights to Vegas and the Caribbean on a regular basis but the aircraft won't get filled which means the airline will lose money or could make more money using the aircraft elsewhere.

x567

There are quite a lot of flights to the main Caribbean Islands from several UK airports (but only 2x weekly from LHR to my knowledge). LGW is the main hub for this and the flights are often full (and BA's 777s densified to take more).  I've made the point before that selling Caribbean connections via MIA from the DUB EI flight as an alternative to trekking through London seems to be a missed opportunity as I think some demand is there or could be created. I agree that direct services would be challenging to fill, but maybe a well-timed (for connections) weekly BGI on an A330 might be worth a punt for EI...

basill

Timing indeed seems to be the major issue on the AL MIA service with poor loads as a result. From what I had heard they had anticipated a good mix of cruise pax which hasn't eventuated and the current timings don't fit with connections to South America or the Caribbean. Hopefully it will get fixed before it gets pulled.

This really is the problem with the leisure market in general. It can be fickle and is often point to point. Compare that with a strong city pair combination where you have J class and cargo and connecting passengers and an all year round demand and 7 day week and its not hard to see that the assets are likely to be deployed on these routes rather than Vegas, BGI etc.

roundymac

We went to Cuba via AMS with KLM. The return was late and they put up on IFE screens the connecting flights that people needed and where to go for them. The vast majority of the flight was connecting passengers, it appeared there were very few Dutch. It just illustrates why airports/airlines don't operate these routes.