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

I know there was a comment earlier about early December been a rough guideline for announcements on new destinations for S26, but has anyone heard rumours on aircraft base deployment for then. Friend of mine working in Cork said theres a rumour of a 4th aircraft. Currently theres 3 based. 2 x Neo’s and 1 x CEO

Heathrow has massive charge reductions for quieter aircraft, so EI want to operate Neos on all LHR rotations. That's why, basically.

DUB also has some reductions, but not anywhere near as much as far as I know.

Aside from LHR, Cork is heavily focused on ACE/TFS for winter so over a full season there is likely a decent fuel saving to justify deployment. They are used more on C Islands at DUB this winter as well.

Could replace one with ceo for S26 but they are due another neo.

anyone else heard Cape Town is next up ?

I could see the rationale if you also consider the ability to sell Biz seats to URC teams that travel up and down quite regularly for matches. Now it’ll be too late for Leinster and Ulster to use this season as they’ve done their southern hemisphere trips already. I say this in particular because of the quite strong contingent that travel to support the provinces. While Qatar are meant to be a partner of the league I can imagine a 12 hr direct is better than a sideways stopover. Aer Lingus would be smart, if launching this route, to speak to the URC and some provinces about what the would prefer(days of travel) if they were to use it as I expect they would launch with a 2x or 3x at a push.

Load factors to Cape Town from Europe have always been quite strong too in general.

Just how much A330 capacity does Aer Lingus have in the winter, taking into account the upcoming cabin refits and general winter maintenance? I would hope any Starlink installation would coincide with the cabin refits, the timing appears appropriate but without solid info on timelines for individual IAG carriers it's hard to know. It would of course limit further downtime later on.

Also, Starlink is going to be fleetwide and there was a mention in the IAG press release that they'd be working to get any currently in production aircraft delivered with it. It's a long shot but it could come with the next A320neo or any after it before a single A330 is done.