Aer Lingus

[Aviador]

[textarea]New Ireland and USA connections from Cardiff cuts travel times

From March 2010 Aer Lingus will operate services from Cardiff to Dublin with easy onward connections to the USA including New York (JFK), Boston, Chicago and Orlando. The service will be operated under the brand Aer Lingus Regional.

Connecting with transatlantic flights in Dublin allows onward passengers to clear immigration quickly before reaching the USA which will make the journey shorter, easier and less stressful than flying from alternative airports such as Heathrow and Bristol.

The Dublin flights will see an increase in services, operating three times daily from Monday - Friday and Sundays, and twice a day on Saturdays. These flights will offer seamless connections onwards to the USA with minimal connecting time.

Aer Lingus will also operate a Cork service daily. In total the two new services will connect Ireland and Wales 52 times each week offering frequent opportunities to reach Ireland for business or leisure.

The flights will replace the existing Aer Arann service following the recent announcement that the airline will be operating as a franchise partner of Aer Lingus.

Flights from Cardiff can be booked on www.aerlingus.com.

Aer Lingus will also be promoting the Wales connection in the USA helping to strengthen the inbound tourism capabilities in time for The 2010 Ryder Cup.

Spencer Birns, head of air service development at Cardiff Airport commented, "We welcome Aer Lingus back to Cardiff for the opportunity to serve the Welsh market.

"The USA connections and ease associated with clearing immigration in Dublin will appeal to business and leisure travellers and gives the market another way of reaching Orlando from Cardiff. We estimate travellers will save 5 hours on journey time using this service from Cardiff Airport rather than travelling down the M4 to fly from London.

"We urge the Welsh market to take advantage of the potential time and cost savings of travelling from Cardiff to Ireland and the USA."

Aer lingus were the first commercial airline to operate from Cardiff Airport (Cardiff Rhoose Airport) in 1952 when they started a scheduled Dublin Service. Since then Aer Lingus has continued to operate charter services from Cardiff for key events such as the 6 Nations Rugby.

Source[/textarea]

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Interesting that by this method of including Aer Arann under their umbrella Aer Lingus appears to be trying to increase feeder flights from UK regional airports onto its transatlantic services from Dublin, whereas BA has been going in the opposite direction in recent times and reduced connecting flights into LHR from the regions.

The key to success will be in the marketing and fare structure.

This was last tried in this part of the world in the 1990s from Bristol when Aer Lingus operated the BRS-DUB route. Unfortunately, the opportunity then afforded to clear US immigration in Ireland was not well advertised and the facility from Bristol only lasted a couple of years as the take-up was not strong because most people just went on using Heathrow or the Amsterdam hub (I admit I did the latter myself several times because fares on KLM were more competitive than with Aer Lingus then - don't know how they compare these days).

Cardiff might be a better bet because it has no direct US service and it is significantly further from Heathrow than is Bristol, though of course it does have the KLM connection via AMS.

 

[Em0866]

I think this is a positive move and increasing the flights per week to the Irish capital is a good thing. I think proper advertising especially on the clearing US customs in DUB is called for. When I went to the US from BRS last year, that was the worst part on my arrival at EWR. Even though the direct services with EI only fly to MCO, JFK, BOS and Chicago, if the price was competative then I would use this service when I go back to the US later this year. I would prefer that to flying east to AMS and then west to my destination

 

[TheLocalYokel]

It's certainly another option for South Wales travellers.

I take your point about flying east then west though in reality the telling feature regards overall length of flight is the amount of time spent on the ground at either Dublin or Amsterdam to change aircraft.

I suspect the thing that will influence most people is the cost. If Aer Lingus can get that right vis-a-vis competing routes and carriers, and market it, the new link could prove a success.

The Aer Lingus name is better known than Aer Arann and that might bring in more passengers on the routes to Dublin and Cork, in addition to those travelling on to the USA.

I wonder how many South Wales travellers currently use the Amsterdam hub to reach North America.

Interesting point about immigration procedures at Newark. Since the inception of the Bristol CO link my son has used it probably seven or eight times both for business and leisure, and has found it a breeze each time with barely a hold-up.

I tell him he's been mighty lucky - he knows that anyway because he's flown into the USA via other gateways and has experienced long delays at immigration on occasions - because although I've never used Newark I've had some long queues at the likes of San Fransisco and Minneapolis-St Paul, and I know others who have used Newark, and like you, have queued for ages waiting to enter the country.

Seems a bit of a lottery.

I've tried looking on the Aer Lingus site for timings and prices but there is nothing there yet.

 

[superking]

I see the service from cwl to dublin is increased by 3 rotations a week from july 4013

 

[Aviador]

I see the service from cwl to dublin is increased by 3 rotations a week from july 4013

Hi Superking thanks for the update. The flight must be doing well then for them to upgrade to three times daily.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I believe this will be an increase to 16 x weekly up from 13 x weekly, although the smaller ATR 42 will be used.

Certainly good news for punters in that flexibility is improved with a greater frequency.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Cork

Reports suggest that tomorrow EIR will announce some expansion at Cork Airport. If this is the case there must be a good chance that CWL will get back its ORK service after several years absence.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Reports suggest that tomorrow EIR will announce some expansion at Cork Airport. If this is the case there must be a good chance that CWL will get back its ORK service after several years absence.

Not this time it seems - no CWL route in the announcement today.

 

[CraigW92]

Aer Lingus confirmed to me on Twitter that the DUB route is to be axed from November 1st, incredibly annoyed about this, last thing we wanted was to see them ousted, especially if BE decide to up sticks like the last time, very sad and dissapointing

 

[alphagolf]

Aer Lingus confirmed to me on Twitter that the DUB route is to be axed from November 1st, incredibly annoyed about this, last thing we wanted was to see them ousted, especially if BE decide to up sticks like the last time, very sad and dissapointing

Just tried a test booking on BA from CWL - DUB in November, no flights available so this confirms CraigW92 earlier post, totally agree this is really disappointing, where does this leave Cardiff pax wanting to travel via Dublin to the US? Do Flybe have any codeshare agreements in place for travel via Dublin..............

 

[jfy1999]

I'm not too surprised Aer Lingus left once Flybe got on board, considering that Aer Lingus also fly to Bristol just up the road. But yes, very bad for passengers who want transatlantic connections.

 

[CraigW92]

Agree with both the above posts, This is where I am extremely cautious of competitors, It was interesting last night when I was browsing on the Flybe website and Dublin was appearing double on weekdays and Glasgow 6 weekly, Glasgow had been scheduled to go 11 X weekly with a double daily on weekdays with Dublin daily so clearly this got changed as a result of EI/stobart pulling out

Stats did appear to show that there was too much capacity on the route, however I would have much prefered EI to stay and for BE to look at other alternative routes.

Can't see EI codesharing on the DUB route with BE, would be good of course, with the loss of U.S pre clearance and one stop flights to America I feel this is a very big blow, as well as the BA codeshare as you pointed out Aplhagolf I imagine you will see a fair few passengers travel to Bristol again if they are indeed travelling onward, hugely disappointing and fustrating, always enjoyed my flights on the ATR.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

This is particularly surprising. It's one route that I thought was rock solid given the US immigration facilities at Dublin Airport for those travelling to the USA which always seemed to be well patronised from CWL.

The CWL-DUB point to point route might have been slightly overdone with EI and Flybe (had one of the airlines been Ryanair then probably no problem). Certainly Air Wales used to operate up to 2 daily alongside Ryanair's daily which itself was in the act of being increased to double daily on some days.

When you look at EI Regional from Bristol which is about to be increased to 4 x daily on four days per week against Ryanair's mainly 3 x daily, this decision of EIR whilst being immensely disappointing is also extremely puzzling.

 

[Em0866]

It is unexpected that EI have decided to pull this route from CWL, but at the same time I am not surprised. Of course we can speculate all we like but the airline has its reasons which me may or may not find out in time to come.

 

[CraigW92]

This is particularly surprising. It's one route that I thought was rock solid given the US immigration facilities at Dublin Airport for those travelling to the USA which always seemed to be well patronised from CWL.

The CWL-DUB point to point route might have been slightly overdone with EI and Flybe (had one of the airlines been Ryanair then probably no problem). Certainly Air Wales used to operate up to 2 daily alongside Ryanair's daily which itself was in the act of being increased to double daily on some days.

When you look at EI Regional from Bristol which is about to be increased to 4 x daily on four days per week against Ryanair's mainly 3 x daily, this decision of EIR whilst being immensely disappointing is also extremely puzzling.

The first part yokel was always my understanding too, always averaged near the 70% LF Mark, and it's exactly why this is a huge blow with regards to the pre clearance at DUB and also the one stop connections to various destinations to the U.S, could well be that the 4th daily on various days has something to do the cull from CWL.

Cityjet did claim an unfair bias from the management with BE when they decided to stop operating out of here, Flybes Dublin route does seem to get a lot more advertising on social media rather than the EI product, although I was only watching a YouTube advert the other day promoting the ease of pre clearance at DUB rather than travelling to London etc, dissaponting day, even more so when the local press get hold of it

There will be a lot more passengers traveling to BRS to use the EI service there that is for sure.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I'm going slightly off Aer Lingus topic but I believe that CityJet was understandably upset when CWL got its big deal with Flybe. CityJet had come in a year previously to take on the routes that Flybe had abandoned when it pulled out of CWL at that time. I suspect that CityJet thought they'd been shafted but they would know that business is business and sentiment plays no part.

Around ten years ago Flybe fell out with BRS when easyJet came onto some of Flybe's BRS routes leading to Flybe eventually pulling them and, when they took over BACon in 2007, Flybe axed BACon's 5-aircraft BRS base entirely. Flybe has only flirted with BRS since on the IOM and JER (both now gone although Blue Islands is supposed to be teaming up with Flybe to operate BRS-JER) and as a carrier on ski routes for travel companies.

At least Flybe operates a jet service. As someone who enjoys travelling in turbo props so long as it's no more than an hour or so I'm continually surprised how many people dislike 'propeller planes' per se.

I don't know how viable it would be for Flybe to strike some sort of alliance with EIR. Aer Lingus would certainly be pleased at anything that feeds passengers into its transatlantic services.

 

[ezy_brs]

seems like KLM maybe the only option for transatlantic traffic now until at least next march. this surprises me as I always thought CWL was profitable for Stobart. Yokel would you happen to have any stats?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

seems like KLM maybe the only option for transatlantic traffic now until at least next march. this surprises me as I always thought CWL was profitable for Stobart. Yokel would you happen to have any stats?

The only figures I can provide are the annual CAA passenger totals for the Dublin route which aren't broken down into point to point and onward transatlantic.

Here are the annual totals although each year rugby charter flights formed part of the overall numbers, typically 2-3,000 per year, but some years much higher as indicated.

2005 119,000
2006 92,000 incl 11,000 charter
2007 68,000
2008 73,000 incl 8,000 charter
2009 65,000
2010 70,000
2011 67,000 incl 6,000 charter
2012 63,000
2013 64,000
2014 71,000
2015 120,000 incl 12,000 charter

Ryanair and Air Wales operated the route until 2006 when Ryanair pulled out and Air Wales ceased trading. Aer Arann took it on and morphed into Aer Lingus Regional in 2010. The big jump in 2015 is the result of Flybe competing with Aer Lingus Regional.

 

[scottrhino]

Strange decision but perhaps they feared preferential treatment to Flybe and with BRS down the road they would be comfortable that people will transfer to use the pre US immigration from there.

It will be interesting to see if Doncaster-Sheffield get a Flybe DUB route and then we'll see if its a company wide policy from EI!!