The national carrier of Ireland, this week announced expansion with five new routes from Dublin. The carriers this week inked an agreement with regional operator Aer Arann to lease a sixth ATR72 which will be deployed on routes to Aberdeen and Bristol from March 27th, 2011. Both routes will be operated six-times weekly from Dublin. Both routes are currently operated by low-cost competitor Ryanair which serves Aberdeen four-times weekly and Aberdeen 16 times weekly.
THINNER ROUTES
Aer Lingus has employed the strategy of operating the regional aircraft to allow them to access thinner markets and operate higher frequency under the Aer Lingus Regional brand, providing feed for Aer Lingus traffic to the US from the UK. It currently operates 31 weekly flights to the US from its Dublin hub with a double daily to JFK, a daily service to Chicago and Boston and a thrice-weekly to Orlando.(Flightbase 14-20 December).
NEW MAINLINE ROUTES
Aer Lingus has also added service with its narrowbody jets this week. Effective March 27th, 2011 it will begin scheduled flights from to Stuttgart, Germany, operated on a four-times weekly basis. The route from Dublin is not currently operated, and comes at a time when Ryanair continues to scale down a number of its German operations due to the introduction of the new departure tax. IATA BSP data shows that there is an existing market of nearly 10,000 O+D passengers, with Lufthansa currently having a 49% share of this traffic via Frankfurt.
Aer Lingus will also expand from Dublin into Perpignan, South-West France, its third destination in France following Paris Charles de Gaulle which it serves thrice-daily from Dublin, daily from Cork and thrice-weekly from Shannon and Nice, served thrice-weekly from Dublin.
Perpignan is largely a secondary airport served only by Air France and Ryanair however does offer access to the tourism markets of Southwest France in the catchment of larger airports such as Toulouse and Montpellier.
Izmir in Turkey provides the third new route from Dublin, set to be operated twice-weekly from May 4th, 2011. Izmir will be a largely outbound route supported by Irish tour operators and is a market where Ryanair has no access. IATA BSP data shows that over 85,000 O+D passengers flew between Ireland and Turkey (September 2009-2010) with Turkish Airlines having an 85% share, and over 10,000 O+D passengers having travelled between Dublin and Izmir.
As the Irish economy has been under intense pressure, Aer Lingus seems to be bucking the trend and is performing well as it continues to expand both mainline and regional operations.
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