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

I know it's wishful thinking but it would be cool if the next A321XLR was painted in a retro livery, especially the iconic 1975 livery.

Arguably, the "retro livery" fashion has dissipated to a degree in Europe. Some, such as the LOT, TAP and SAS ones, remain but Lufthansa, KLM, Air France and Iberia are amongst those carriers which have dropped the idea in favour of the standard livery fleetwide. The only remaining BA one is the BEA-liveried A319 and it is expected to be retired from the fleet later this year.

ITA have a very distinctive livery. The blue makes it very recognisable when the majority of airline liveries are mostly white now.

I'd love to see the livery they put on the DC-3 pre-COVID on an Airbus.

The ITA livery is probably my favourite. Time will tell how it looks as the blue fades after a few years in the weather.

The Korean refresh was also very nice and EI could have easily done similar.

I don't think fleet swaps is really the driving force behind livery choice at IAG carriers, it's not exactly common to see aircraft changing hands between them.

You will see synergies in things like seats, particularly economy and across short haul but again, that's not for fleet swaps but more about securing better value by bulk buying from one supplier.

all seem to work for me?

Air travel has become so commonplace nowadays it's no longer regarded as glamorous, and airlines once regarded with national pride are now seen as just transport companies with business models geared towards maximising profit rather than having any pretensions to style or distinction in appearance.

@Tenger had a post written about EDP/EDS being ex IB. Went to air fleets to verify the dates of transfer and it says they were both delivered new to EI in 2009.

That had me down a rabbit hole as these two frames are the oddballs of the short haul fleet, right down to door stickers being in Spanish, different chimes, different annunciations, different colour ACP lights, even different seats, yet a photo search of a well known aviation site has plenty of pics of them in ‘09 in EI colours! Now I’m stumped haha! I imagine they were picked up last minute from a cancelled order?!?

Didn't EI take the A319s off IB or am I imagining that?

IIRC they were originally supposed to have J class seats so the seat rails were set up for that. When EI went all economy it resulted in the seats up front having more legroom than normal and the ones down back having less.

Correct 4 them are still active wit vueling

EI-NSH spotted in full colours without engines installed at TLS earlier this month. Test registration F-WWTX.

Credit: Digital Airliners

As is, how far away is it from joining the fleet would you expect

I wonder when EI-XLU will get going again? It hasn't had any significant movement in a month now and the removal of its tail back in April suggests there may have been a set back.

It was leapfrogged by EI-XLV, and EI-XLW isn't far behind either.