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End of Shannon or end of Aer Lingus?
Read more about: Clare, End of Shannon-Heathrow, Europe, Limerick East, Limerick West, Transport, Travel & Tourism 
Here we go again. Aer Lingus is withdrawing more services from Shannon. But this row is going to play out very differently than the end of Shannon-Heathrow. The latter row caught the government on the hop but also featured an Aer Lingus in a very different mood, confident that it could launch a sub-hub in Belfast and not feeling that it needed the legacy service to Heathrow in Shannon.
But when Belfast didn’t turn out to be El Dorado, there was the quiet return of Shannon-Heathrow at a service level sufficient to keep basic connectivity at the airport. But today’s news is that long-haul services other than Boston are being pulled for what could be a long winter. While Aer Lingus will explain this in terms of Shannon being a seasonal demand airport, the ugly truth is that Aer Lingus is looking like a seasonal demand airline, at least as far as service to the US is concerned.
According to the Irish Times story, they’re having trouble filling Dublin-Dulles and Dublin-SF as well, especially outside the June-August travel window which is being hammered anyway by the global recession. Thus the issue on the table is the Aer Lingus business model. For the past few years, the model was that they could have a significant short-haul business and then niche long-haul to the USA and perhaps the Gulf. But the lesson appears to be that there isn’t the market base to sustain the niche markets, and Ryanair is running rings around them on the short-haul (especially given Aer Lingus schizophrenia about how to compete with them).
So, a prediction: the Shannon-USA row will be much less damaging to the government than Shannon-Heathrow. But it will more damaging to Aer Lingus. It will re-open the question of the government shareholding and whether the competition between Ryanair and Aer Lingus really needs to be a policy objective of the European Commission, their stated basis for blocking the Ryanair bid. One senses that Michael O’Leary and Noel Dempsey have a few conversations ahead of them.
At the time of moving the Heathrow slots to Belfast there was a rumour around informed sources that Belfast was always intended to fail and those Heathrow slots would atain be moved but this time to a transatlantic service from the US to Heathrow. The idea was to finally bring about a “no frills” low cost transatlantic service but bring it between major airports.
Cutting the transatlantic routes from Shannon would free up longhaul planes and slots in US airports to facilitate this new strategy.
I went through Shannon Last Thursday and Saturday. The place was dead no one about. You could park in the drop off bay and no one would say a thing. I asked the guy at security was it always this quiet. And he said that it had been like that for a while now. Considering that this was the beginning of June it says alot about Shannon.
Not surprised they’re having problems with filling the plane to Dulles. The prices are €100 more than what other airlines are charging to fly to DCA (albeit indirectly).
Agree with the pricing being a problem.
I’ve never found Aer Lingus to be competitive on trans-Atlantic routes, direct or in-direct.
I was able to fly business class to the States in March via Heathrow for €250 cheaper than an economy fare direct with Aer Lingus.
Sob. Well the software community is raging. How on earth are we supposed to get to the West Coast now? S’alright for tourists doing the Heathrow gig – try commuting through it every 4-6 weeks. I LIKE travelling Aer Lingus.
ANYTHING,ANYTHING is better than Heathrow, the misery and it adds 5 hours to the journey
don’t worry we can war profiteer