Is Aer Lingus Moving to the UK???

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Quick update on what’s going on in Ireland with this pandemic. As many of you know, I own an events company here in Ireland and this pandemic has completely destroyed the events and hospitality sector. Just to give you an idea of how bad it is, we’ve been in lockdown for 163 days so far. I don’t mean the type of lockdown where a few things are closed, everything non-essential is closed and we’re not allowed to leave a 5km radius of our home!

All that drama along with all the travel I had planned to Thailand, Australia & Singapore getting cancelled, really took a toll on my mental health and I slipped into a bit of a depression for several months.

But, I’m back, I’m exercising daily, eating clean, taking good care of myself and best of all, starting to put out new videos!

But enough about me! Aer Lingus has some news so let’s get into it!

Ireland is the home of Guinness, Oscar Wilde and of course our flagship carrier, Aer Lingus.

The airline flies to over 20 countries throughout Europe and North America with a total of 93 destinations served.

It has over 4000 employees, a fleet of 51 aircrafts made up of various airbus models and its base of operations is in dublin with focus cities in Belfast, Cork and Shannon.

So what’s an Irish airline doing opening a new base of operations in Manchester, England?

Well to answer this, we first have to go all the way back to 2019.

On Sept 23rd, 2019 Thomas Cook announced that after more than 170 years of trading, it was ceasing all operations which left over 600,000 passengers stranded as they grounded all 105 aircrafts.

This is where Aer Lingus jumps in. With the collapse of Thomas Cook, thousands of landing slots were all of a sudden up for grabs at airports across the UK.

EasyJet, Jet2 and Aer Lingus were among the biggest winners from the Thomas Cook collapse with Aer Lingus taking a whopping 1,500 landing slots for Manchester airport alone.

According to Aer Lingus, the company is setting up a UK subdivision called Aer Lingus UK and intends to offer competitive fares for the 2021 travel season to the United States.

Routes

In December 2020, Aer Lingus filed a request with the U.S. Department of Transportation. according to the filing, Aer Lingus will start by flying 3 routes.

The first being a daily service from Manchester to Boston for the summer months.

The second a daily service from Manchester to New York City all year round

Lastly the third route being Manchester to Orlando which will operate daily during the summer months and switch to 4 flights a week during the off season.

Fleet

To pull off this ambitious venture, Aer Lingus will lease two existing A330-300’s to the new subsidiary along with two brand spanking new A321LR’s that are expected to be delivered from Airbus in April or may of 2021.

Oneworld

Another exciting element to this new venture is that the U.S. Dept of Transport has granted permission for Aer Lingus to integrate their network planning, pricing, and sales activities with Oneworld Alliance, giving access to American Airlines, British Airways, Level, Iberia and Finnair the opportunity to expand capacity and giving passengers more options for travel to Ireland and other European destinations.

American Airlines released a statement praising the Department of Transportation’s decision and added that Aer Lingus customers will now have access to over 200 destinations in the United States as part of this new agreement.

Ultimately this will be good news for air travellers as it will create more competition in the market which usually means better prices for passengers. Currently their main rivals will be Delta & Virgin Atlantic that also operate out of Manchester airport.

What do you make of Aer Lingus’s new routes from Manchester to the United States? Is this something you’re looking forward to flying in the future? Get involved in the discussion and let me know in the comments below.

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Until next time, stay safe, keep collecting and hopefully see you in the sky!