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

Ei fav now back aswell

Flew on EI-FAT from Bristol yesterday. Much better seats than most of the ATRs emerald are using - great to have it back.

Still has the old EI livery from a few years ago, with a big sticker saying Emerald Airlines at the back, presumably covering up the old Stobart logo.

hope they get more, despite being older, they’re in better condition than most of the rest of the fleet, imho

Wonder if it's going to Emerald

Which would go completely against the current strategy of transatlantic growth?? They’re already stretched for long haul narrow body aircraft and the addition of Cleveland shows this type of growth is still very much the plan so it would be a bizarre decision to decline the one aircraft you need to fulfil this mission.

Possible, if the LRs are sufficient for route opening and smaller load destinations, but IAG would likely keep those XLR slots for IAG: no? Also, a330neo slots would likely be easy to come by... AirAisaX dumped a load of them. Would be nice to see the neo ordered though, give some clarity on the future fleet intent. IMHO EI need both.

Maybe they shift the A321LRs onto the likes of Cleveland/expansion routes (+SNN) and put the A330neos on the maore mature markets like EWR/IAD/YYZ/PHL?

They could definitely do with more A330’s the likes of YYZ, IAD and EWR were all previously A330 routes. It would be even better if they ordered A330NEO’s and no more crap aircraft from Qatar that are shocking and substandard. The worst aircraft flying across the Atlantic currently bar none.

It may be more suitable for connections having X2 NEO vs 1 A330 in certain destinations for sure it opens up a lot more connections. However the A321NEO has zero cargo capacity and regularly leaves behind luggage as there is no space and also cannot take sports equipment, golf clubs etc. I would have imagined there would be room for more capacity on YYZ it was originally a 757 route and then upgraded to A330. Huge Irish population in Toronto. Air Canada has used 400 seater 777-300ER quite often. The NEO is definitely more suitable in the winter when loads are lower and can maintain daily where A330 would be maybe 3/4 times a week.

All 3 are pushing on in years with the A330 no longer in production long term they will need to decide a new wide body most likely A330Neo

-DAA 21 years old

-DUO 15 years old

-GEY 19 years old

You'd be surprised despite the odd occasion of payload restrictions; how much they still make including disruption costs with A21N's. YYZ is a yield bloodbath at the moment with four carriers; if you were to use the Irish pop analysis you could apply YVR over SEA, there's always other factors for capacity and destination.

Today was definitely an example of that. EIN is still stuck in LAX after the hydraulics issue. Currently GAJ, GCF , EIM and EIN operate west coast with 3 required every day to operate SFO, LAX and SEA with one of the ac usually doing an east coast each day to be back in time to operate the 12:35 departure to SFO. With EIN stuck in LA todays SFO had to wait for the previous days SFO to arrive and turn around resulting in a 2.5 hour delay. Definitely shows having multiple variations of the A330 doesn’t help in these scenarios.

Is GEY definitely still on the books? I had heard elsewhere it was returned to the lessor.

Didn’t they finally manage to refit the business cabin in ‘GEY just a few weeks before the pandemic hit? Would be a shame to see them wasted.

Anyone know what actually happens to the business class seats once an aircraft is returned or scrapped?