Dublin routes news and general chat

trellheim

They’re all students in their 20s

Most of them I know go home once every 2 years - 18 months or so. The Addis connection seems to indicate its very price sensitive though

Stephen Strange

trellheim wrote: »

Most of them I know go home once every 2 years - 18 months or so. The Addis connection seems to indicate its very price sensitive though

It is very price sensitive. They also tend to buy flexible tickets where they can change the dates.

Sao Paolo - Frankfurt - Dublin was very popular as well, not sure if it still is.

trellheim

Yes it is, a few friends go that way, as theres good prices from LAN or LATAM or whatever theyre called now ,,, still makes me think there'd be value in a nonstop .

Stephen Strange

trellheim wrote: »

Yes it is, a few friends go that way, as theres good prices from LAN or LATAM or whatever theyre called now ,,, still makes me think there'd be value in a nonstop .

Possibly, but I'm not sure if the numbers are there.

However, if Norwegian and Ryanair got an interlining agreement in place, it could possibly be a good route for Norwegian to launch. They do Gatwick to Buenos Aires on one of their 787s and it seems like decent value.

Marcusm

trellheim wrote: »

Dublin-Sao Paulo , or even Shannon-Sao Paulo (better ) would have a decent chance I'd say given the amount of expats here , a 330-200 or 330-300 well within range and it'd be perfect connecting traffic although with a 12 hour flight time difficult to run as a daily

Long, thin and price sensitive. Can’t see it ever being seriously considered. As regards SNN, that really denuded any credibility.

Chris_5339762

I know of Brazilians doing Sao Paolo to Amsterdam to Dublin, or even Sao Paolo - Munich - Dublin.

trellheim

A lot of Brazilians live in the west of Ireland, I think quite a few here are underestimating the number. SNN would be a fuel/pax stop as well as i doubt a full 330 for GRU could get out of DUB on a hot and heavy day.

Marcusm

trellheim wrote: »

A lot of Brazilians live in the west of Ireland, I think quite a few here are underestimating the number. SNN would be a fuel/pax stop as well as i doubt a full 330 for GRU could get out of DUB on a hot and heavy day.

There are huge numbers down the West although anytime I see them interviewed they hsven’t Been home in a while due to need to regularise their immigration status! Lots of Brazilian students in all najir cities and most with part time jobs. Many with a Italian or Portuguese passports. Lots of great deals via AMS/CDG on KL/AF and in AZ via Italy too. TP don’t have a codeshare in to Dublin although they have multiple Brazilian destinations.

How do I know this? My in laws are over for Christmas from Rio! Ireland is not a business or holiday destination for wealthy/middle class Brazilians and there is a lot of price sensitivity. It’s a 12 hour flight from Ireland so v expensive on fuel and crewing. Can’t see it even popping up on EI/IAG’s radar.

HTCOne

Agreed, the likes of DEN, IAH and YVR would be further up the wish list for widebody service imo

Cravens

DUB-GRU might work, but probably only twice a week. But HTCOne has outlined, there are more worthwhile candidates for widebody service, however I’d tempt fate by saying DFW would be further up the list of potential routes. Also YVR has the 5x weekly 767 service with AC Rouge already.

Noxegon

Marcusm wrote: »

Can’t see it even popping up on EI/IAG’s radar.

I can't see any long haul that isn't to the US/Canada popping up on EI/IAG's radar these days.

1123heavy

One thing I've never understood and regret not asking Stephen Kavanagh during a Q&A after a talk of his I attended a while back was why Africa has been largely ignored by them. I mean destinations like Lagos, Abuja and perhaps even Kinshasa. There is an extremely sizeable amount of Nigerians in Ireland and I would say definitely something that can sustain at least a few times weekly service. There are also just as many Congolese in Ireland. 
This perhaps seems far fetched stuff, but why is it? Why do Aer Lingus ignore everything that is not NA?

EchoIndia

1123heavy wrote: »

One thing I've never understood and regret not asking Stephen Kavanagh during a Q&A after a talk of his I attended a while back was why Africa has been largely ignored by them. I mean destinations like Lagos, Abuja and perhaps even Kinshasa. There is an extremely sizeable amount of Nigerians in Ireland and I would say definitely something that can sustain at least a few times weekly service. There are also just as many Congolese in Ireland.
This perhaps seems far fetched stuff, but why is it? Why do Aer Lingus ignore everything that is not NA?

I assume the airline's market data is able to indicate the number of passengers between Ireland and those countries/regions. In some cases I imagine that there is an amount of business travel that justifies the route in the first place. Even then, Lagos is served by BA, Air France, KLM, Lufthansa, Meridiana and Virgin - not a surfeit of European carriers by any means. The only Western European airlines serving Kinshasa are Air France and Brussels Airlines - and historical links play a part here. The ME3 plus Ethiopian have strong networks into Africa and I doubt you will see any carrier having a go at direct flights unless there is a really compelling case that there is a market that needs to be served.

Stephen Strange

EchoIndia wrote: »

The ME3 plus Ethiopian have strong networks into Africa and I doubt you will see any carrier having a go at direct flights unless there is a really compelling case that there is a market that needs to be served.

Air France also have a large amount of the market through CDG. Again, I reckon it can be quite a price sensitive market (in parts) and AL probably wouldn't be able to compete direct.

JCX BXC

Some people seem to think it's nearly a conspiracy that EI are so focused on expansion to the West, I think it's simply a good expansion plan.

With this constant expansion to the US market, they're constantly getting PR over there, they have good connection traffic from areas of the UK without links to these parts of the US, their product works in the market and they're doing very well so far. If you plan is working why change it!

There's some good reasons why they don't expand east or south in my opinion, I'd imagine the African market is extremely limited at best. We have a very low amount of Africans compared to other European countries who have links to these places. Any market left I think is well catered for by Ethiopian.

Expansion East would be madness in my opinion. The product EI offer is very poor in comparison to the ME3 and even Turkish, all who would give extreme competition to Aer Lingus.

Stick with the US until that tap runs dry. Perhaps you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, but most Airlines have to. (Fifth freedom etc)

Doltanian

JCX BXC wrote: »

Some people seem to think it's nearly a conspiracy that EI are so focused on expansion to the West, I think it's simply a good expansion plan.

With this constant expansion to the US market, they're constantly getting PR over there, they have good connection traffic from areas of the UK without links to these parts of the US, their product works in the market and they're doing very well so far. If you plan is working why change it!

There's some good reasons why they don't expand east or south in my opinion, I'd imagine the African market is extremely limited at best. We have a very low amount of Africans compared to other European countries who have links to these places. Any market left I think is well catered for by Ethiopian.

Expansion East would be madness in my opinion. The product EI offer is very poor in comparison to the ME3 and even Turkish, all who would give extreme competition to Aer Lingus.

Stick with the US until that tap runs dry. Perhaps you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, but most Airlines have to. (Fifth freedom etc)

Dublin is basically viewed as Heathrow's third runaway and there is alot of UK regional traffic diverted into Dublin for Transatlantic connections, if your in Newcastle, leeds or some other small regional UK Airport it is more sensible to connect to America in Dublin than in Heathrow. Aer Lingus is BA with a green paint job.

The Veteran

When the new Transfer Area opens later this year, reckon EI will really look to drive traffic to the US and Canada via Dublin.

Van.Bosch

The Veteran wrote: »

When the new Transfer Area opens later this year, reckon EI will really look to drive traffic to the US and Canada via Dublin.

They are already driving traffic through Dublin to US/Canada?

I think the Africa region might work but more as feed to their LH aircraft bound for the US.

snotboogie

JCX BXC wrote: »

Expansion East would be madness in my opinion. The product EI offer is very poor in comparison to the ME3 and even Turkish, all who would give extreme competition to Aer Lingus.

The Middle East airlines aren't convenient for a lot of destinations in Asia, a route to Beijing would be well out of their way.

Jamie2k9

Van.Bosch wrote: »

They are already driving traffic through Dublin to US/Canada?

I think the Africa region might work but more as feed to their LH aircraft bound for the US.

New transfer area will make the process easier for customers which will benefit.

Noxegon

JCX BXC wrote: »

The product EI offer is very poor in comparison to the ME3 and even Turkish, all who would give extreme competition to Aer Lingus.

Agreed.

Doltanian wrote: »

Aer Lingus is BA with a green paint job.

In my experience the service is considerably better on BA.

Shn99

Interesting
https://ie.linkedin.com/jobs/view/a320-pilots-dublin-at-wizz-air-555215119

Noxegon

Shn99 wrote: »

Interesting
https://ie.linkedin.com/jobs/view/a320-pilots-dublin-at-wizz-air-555215119

Doesn't seem to be doing all that well for them.

"Be one of the first 10 applicants."

jamo2oo9

Is a type rating really that expensive? I was expecting it to be in 5,000 or around it

sdanseo

I've seen figures of €20k for type rating + MCC as addons to modular courses, doesn't seem too out there.

1123heavy

Type ratings are expensive. For easyJet it's £36,000 to do it as a graduate of CTC/OAA/FTE or any of the other schools in Europe they have smaller partnerships with.

737 ratings with the likes of RYR are 30,000 eu, the type rating for the airline i'm with on the 320 is costing 25,000 eu, but its increased to 30,000 now for all future applicants. CityJet even were charging the guts of 20,000 for a rating on the RJ, might even still be.

Not to wander too far off topic anyway, Wizz are now trying to hire pilots via the Dublin based sigma recruitment agency (not looking for pilots in dublin in case people were thinking that), the issue with them is they want experience mostly and most of those with experience on the 320 are either happy in their own airlines or looking to fly bigger birds.

Just to add, the wizz type rating offered to low hour guys is actually a very good deal, you pay half then they pay you back that half after staying for a particular amount of time, think it's 3 years. Even the half you pay is only 7,500 ... dirt cheap considering the other options out there. There's only so many of these offers they can make though with the company only being able to take on so many inexperienced guys at any given moment for simple operational risk management reasons and a need to maintain a balance of experience in the operation.

TheFitz13

Sorry to bring up BA and EI again...

But I've heard from a friend in swissport that they've lost the BA contract and EI have gotten it.. anyone know anything?

EDIT: Sorry heard it wrong, apparently Menzies are coming to DUB and swissport have lost IB, VY and BA from April 1st

Locker10a

TheFitz13 wrote: »

Sorry to bring up BA and EI again...

But I've heard from a friend in swissport that they've lost the BA contract and EI have gotten it.. anyone know anything?

EDIT: Sorry heard it wrong, apparently Menzies are coming to DUB and swissport have lost IB, VY and BA from April 1st

Makes me laugh when this sort of thing happens, it will end up being the same staff, in a different uniform just working for a different handling agent that offered a more attractive (cheaper) contract .

L1011

If EI switch to Menzies as well (it has been hinted at on here that they'd outsource) they'll be fine; but with FR self-handling it does leave a relatively small pool for the rest

1123heavy

Yes, also heard from a close friend in Swissport that redundancies are on the cards and a meeting of staff has been called for some time in the coming weeks. He says the staff have known it was a long time coming anyway. The rumours about menzies and BA have been heard too but it's not confirmed yet and swissport are trying to keep it. The biggest surprise for me was American running (or at least planning to do) their own handling from next year, that's another hit for swissport.

Another thing I heard though is that swissport may be getting the qatar contract, apparently when they first started the route they wanted swissport and swissport knew this and so demanded an unreasonable sum ... Qatar buggered off to sky handling.