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

Irish Steve wrote: »

Their airlines is the issue, Aer Lingus is no longer Irish owned, albeit that there is a massive employment in Ireland, and IAG have not made any comment about looking for financial support from the government here, probably because they don't want to have any subsequent strings as a result.

Ryanair is also Irish as such, but there's no love lost between them and politics, for all sorts of reasons, and things like bogus self employment of pilots would almost certainly have been on the agenda if Ryanair had pushed for support, and that would cause all sorts of complications for Ryanair if the rules were changed.

Neither airline has any state shareholding as such, so state support for effectively private enterprise would have to be approved by all sorts of different bodies.

There are then other operators that could also have been considered, Cityjet and Stobart are Irish based, so where does one draw a line?

Hopefully, the relevant employees have been looked after by state support, as they should have been eligible, but given the haphazard manner in which government has dealt with so many issues, it's hard to know exactly what has gone on.

If airlines had been supported, how does one then deal with the massive number of leasing companies that are Irish based, and they have aircraft literally spread around the globe with a massive number of operators.

Then there's maintenance operators, who will have seen a downturn due to lack of utilisation, but an increase in work keeping aircraft in good condition. At the same time, how many aircraft are being returned to leasing companies, so the maintenance operators are working on them to ensure they meet the return off lease agreements, and they can be very complex and long inspections.

Its far more complex than just throwing money at the airlines, and right now, I don't think it's been on the agenda of too many people because of the background issues of resentment against people who travelled when they should not have, and the whole unspoken "green" issues about long haul, this pandemic has served to bring a whole raft of issues into a clearer focus, and some of the eventual results may not be what anyone in the industry wants to see or hear, as its very likely that there will be significant changes when the dust settles on this disruption.

Then there's the issue of a government that's not really truly aware of what it's doing, or what it should be doing, there's been way too much of an absence of clear planning throughout this whole time, and there's way more than just airlines that have been affected by their inertia.