Aer Lingus Fleet/ Routes Discussion Pt 2 (ALL possible routes included)

HTCOne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118066787#Comment_118066787

KLM certainly, but IIRC TAP had less than half the North American destinations that EI did pre pandemic, I'd suggest their aggressive growth in DUB is being driven mainly by South American connections, particularly for the ever growing Brazilian diaspora here. Not to mention Lisbon is a fantastic spot to visit in of itself.

Speaking from experience (albeit about 5 years ago), LIS is a nightmare to connect through in comparison to say AMS or FRA.

Shamrockj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118066787#Comment_118066787

No Pre clearance in either of those airports also EI fares are often competitive on Trans Atlantic flights.

Jack1985

EI are to commence an ACMI contract for Vueling, basing one A330 at ORY from November operating 5 routes. Contract is intended to last 3 months.

ORY-ARN

ORY-BGY

ORY-DUB

ORY-NUE

ORY-XRY

Van.Bosch

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069343#Comment_118069343

An A330? Seems a bit big

California Dreamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118069376#Comment_118069376

Probably is, but also a great chance to get crews current in preparation for the return to full TA ops

Surely he meant A320? Have VY ever operated a 330?

kevinandrew

I’d be surprised to see Vueling require an A330, particularly for that route profile but I’d be equally surprised if they needed a single A320 as well, surely they have plenty of their own A320s available for these missions?!

Shamrockj

Jack1985 is correct it will be an A330 based in ORY operating on behalf of Vueling. They recently got a lot of slots in ORY and are expanding.

Van.Bosch

Seems very strange but good for EI, none of those routes would require anA330 in November so surprised it isn’t a A320.

basill

Its a 330.

Mad_maxx

Flew to Gatwick yesterday and really should have chosen Heathrow as I'm staying in Kensington.

Tube to Heathrow is only half a dozen stops from earls Court where as rail trip required from Victoria Station to Gatwick

Wondering if I might be able to fly back from Heathrow instead of Gatwick?

Even you can switch return origin airport?, price to change is prohibitively high ?

Murph85

An xlr couldnt go from Dublin to lax could it ? Say with a reduced capacity configuration of 150 or so ?

Shamrockj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118079235#Comment_118079235

I doubt it especially on the westbound leg. Even if it could physically make it the aircraft doesn’t have a rest area for relief pilot and for cabin crew which is required for flights to the west coast.

I checked on the airbus website and it says the range for the xlr is 8,700km and the distance from Dublin to lax is roughly 8,300km

Jack1985

Couldn't imagine sitting on a single aisle heading for the west coast. As above, EASA regs required for Crew wouldn't allow it with the A/C config.

goingnowhere

Commercially Chicago is a stretch for the NEO, remember EI had difficulties getting out of the existing runway in Dublin depending on wind conditions, once the new runway opens that goes away

One problem, the aircraft has no crew rest so could never fly DUB-LAX with passengers. Not much point flying freight as you can't fit much into the LR

Shamrockj

It does raise an interesting question. What routes can/cannot be served with the current LR and future XLR.

I would imagine once the new runway is operational the LR could possibly reach Chicago, Minneapolis and the XLR possibly Orlando, Atlanta and Miami ?

would be interning to know the furthest it can realistically go from Dublin in the current config . I know all the current LR’s are now fitted with the extra tanks.

Coffeelock2020

Does anyone know is the Cork schedule finalised for next summer?

A lot of routes not available to book such as Barcelona, Paris, Lisbon etc

Jack1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118082614#Comment_118082614

The LR won't go for those routes, the XLR is the aircraft they need for them. No requirement for any crew rest on those routes you mentioned and the range would allow it (well on Airbus 21N XLR paperwork). The current LR's carry as you said extra tanks, 3 additional ACT's and IAD would encroach near the range for those A/C when operating near max ZFW/MTOW.

The XLR would be ideal for ORD (particularly Winter when demand is lower), MIA and MSP. Orlando is daily A330 next Summer, it'll remain A330 for the foreseeable. One area where the XLR's can be deployed is into Asia, TLV was being examined just prior to Covid.

Jack1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118082618#Comment_118082618

Schedule is not yet green-lighted for S21, majority of services are bookable excluding those ORK routes in addition to DUB/ORK-ALC. I wouldn't be overly optimistic about EI's ORK operation, lots of existing routes planned at lower frequency and they don't seem to be committing more than 2 A/C.

Clon63

Aer Lingus Winter 2021.xlsx

Good to read of the extra capacity for the mid term especially on the llast rotations of some of the sun routes and also thatthey expect to be back at 90% of Summer 19 capacity by June 2022. I really want to see Aer Lingus back doing well and I can only imagine that the staff do to a huge degree as for them it's about jobs and careers.

I think Aer Lingus have really struggled through the pandemic - even more so than most other airlines . My own interactions weren't great - 8 months to get a refund for a cancelled flight (it involved a Jet Blue connection but bought through Aer Lingus so still seemed much too long, a cancelled booking close enough to the flight and the one trip I did to London got changed around several times. I flew back on A Saturday when the last flight of the day left LHR at 1340 after being booked on a LGW evening flight. And the whole (lack of) catering issue is really afiasco. I have had 2 flights to book since for travel before Christmas and for now Ryanair are my airline of choice. Just seem more reliable and "ready" for it just now. I think they have a fair bit of work to do to rebuild their reputation amongst those who were messed around but am sure they can do it and with only a minority flying recently many people would not have experienced the poor operations for the past while/

But looking to the future hopefully thinks are looking up. I have looked through the schedule for the first "real"week of the winter schedule for the week starting 8th November and many of the continuing routes see some extra frequencies over "peak" Summer 2021 back in September. Overall they have 330 Irish departures per week in November compared to 347 in September. That winter figure will begin to creep up as the transatlantic routes are restored and maybe extra frequencies are added to other routes.

In terms of the flights at the moment 7 are from Shannon, 46 from Belfast and 277 from Dublin. It is amazing to think that right now Belfast accounts for 16% of frequencies and this is achieved with just 2 based aircrafts. They have major increases in frequency on both Manchester and Edinburgh since the Summer while Birmingham goes over to BA.

In Dublin there are 34 transatlantic frequencies from the strart with Toronto added since September and with Newark to follow shortly. On the shorthal it is 243 frequencies compared to 270 at Summer peak which seems quite healthy when considering the Summer only routes are now finished. Of the shorthaul frequencies 106 are now to the UK with 137 to elsewhere.

UK wise heathrow and Glasgow have the main increases with Manchester and Edinburgh each getting 2 extra weekly frequencies. I think this was very important as just having single flights on the UK provincial routes on the majority of days made these routes very uncompetitive against the competition especially with the early morning timings unless you were connecting to the American flights.

On the Euro routes most continuing routes retain their Summer frequency or see an extra weekly service. 4 "key" routes that were suspended during Covid are back - Frankfurt, Geneva, Prague and Zurich. Now even by Aer Lingus standards I presume the planned schedule due to operate in 2 weeks is reliable but the frequencies on both Zurich (6) and Frankfurt (10) both seem high considering they are just back and compared to the frequencies on the majority of routes that have been operating for a while.

One route where there seems a real dogfight is Frankfurt where EI are back from November with 10 flights a week, FR have 12 and LH have 20. I did a quick check on prices yesterday for Monday November 8th and the prices are very low, LH has the lowest basic fare of €17, Aer Lingus €30 and FR €32 on the outbound flights. Seems like an interesting dynamic on that route.

While the overall progress seems positive, things look much weaker when you view the schedule with regard to planned capacity, Looking at the Winter schedule the dominance of Ryanair is very apparent, the pressure of the European majors Lufthansa, Air France and and KLM is increasing and you even see pressure from within the IAG stable where BA has more frequency in the London market which has never been the case before.

Ryanair has 689 weekly frequencies from Dublin to 243 European for Aer Lingus so really Aer Lingus shorthaul is only a third of the size of Aer Lingus. While Ryanair have many more routes they are well ahead on so many routes including all UK routes, Amsterdam (28 v 14); Barcelona and Madrid (14 v 5), Milan Area (21 v5), Rome (5 v13) and so on Probably the one I found was Brussels wher Ryanair has 15 per week plus Charleroi - Aer Lingus again just have 5. With so much business on that route frequency and prices must be beating tradition. The only routes where Aer Lingus seem to be close to Ryanair in terms of requency are Malaga and the Canaries with FR still being ahead with Paris the only major route where Aer Lingus is well ahead is Paris with 17 frequencies compared to 10 for Ryanair FR (albeit going to Beauvais), Air France have 20 on this route. EI and FR have pretty similar schedules on Hamburg and Vienna too.

Spreadsheet attached for fellow nerds

kevinandrew

I had my first flight on the A321LR today and I can’t fault the aircraft nor the service provided. Aer Lingus have had a tough pandemic, more than most, but they certainly haven’t lost their shine in the air; cabin crew on both flights were superb, aircraft cabins were tidy and well presented, boarding was organised and efficient and both flights were near enough completely full. Okay, the Bia menu is still a reduced offering but what they did have was well stocked.

I wasn’t happy with the new cabin bag policy initially but in practice it’s a much easier option and definitely makes boarding a more pleasant experience. Despite the full flights there was still plenty of room in the overhead lockers and no arguments at the gate.

The A321LR is a huge bonus on short haul flights, Aer Lingus now need to bring the A320s to a similar standard with in-seat power. I’d happily fly the A321LR transatlantic, it was a comfortable and pleasant experience.

Locker10a

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118083076#Comment_118083076

Thanks for that in depth breakdown. It’s certainly interesting and slightly concerning for EI to have allowed the loss of so much market share. Hopefully someone is awake in EI and will make a full push back to recover this to 2018/19.

Some posters here have mentioned all crew have been called by EI asking them back in the new year, this is presumably a good sign that they intend to have a pretty full schedule next year.

LXFlyer

Press release this morning for the launch of Aer Lingus Summer 2022 destinations:

https://mediacentre.aerlingus.com/pressrelease/details/108/13493

Murph85

I hope aer lingus resume flights to Texas from Dublin!

ongarboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118084357#Comment_118084357

I don't think EI ever flew to Texas. AA flew from DFW though and believe they will next summer also.

I note from the EI press release that TA routes Miami, Minneapolis and Hartford are not returning for 2022 unfortunately however good to see all the other DUB and SNN TA routes return.

Locker10a

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118084308#Comment_118084308

I notice too Rhodes and Santorini are missing which is pretty disappointing

Noxegon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118084964#Comment_118084964

They're also flying to "Gran Canarias" and "Lyons".

Poor form by the proof-reader....

DubKildare

No Miami for 2022? I thought they announced a while back that the Miami route was coming back from December?

Locker10a

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118084964#Comment_118084964

Also missing Alicante, Bologna and Catania, which is surprising, I remember these routes being popular enough to require a321s being used on them pre-pandemic. Perhaps there’s a few more additions to be made later as things pan out.

Sexual Chocolate

Do we think they could bring back any of the a330-200s ?