Killing the goose that laid the golden egg

In the fable, the owner of the goose that laid golden eggs got greedy and decided to kill the goose because they thought her innards were made of gold. But not only did they find that her insides were the same as any other goose, they also brought an abrupt end to their daily supply of golden eggs.

Aer Lingus have done pretty much the same moving Shannon’s Heathrow slots to Belfast.

A flight from Shannon could cost €80 one way, and flights had an average load factor of 80 percent.

Flights from Belfast to Heathrow, which are due to begin on Monday, are selling for as low as one pound sterling, yet the Belfast to Heathrow route has an average load factor of 35 percent for the first month.

Were, Aer Lingus, no matter how unlikely it might be, to abandon their Belfast to Heathrow route and restore the Shannon Heathrow route, would it pull in the same numbers now. A lot of bad feeling has built up between people of the west and Aer Lingus. I do believe that the Loyalty that Aer Lingus showed to the people of the west back in August would be reciprocated were they to resume Shannon-Heathrow now. Basically, there would be more than one person telling them to shove their service up the deepest, darkest and dampest part of their arse. Combine this with CityJet’s introduction of a Shannon-Charles De Gaulle service, and the soon to start service from Galway to Amsterdam by Aer Arran.

The last Shannon-Heathrow flight will depart this evening.

More from the Sunday Business Post.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 6:13 am and is filed under All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Hoof

Well Paul, don't expect Mannion to give a fuck about how he has shafted you and the business community of the mid-west/west of this country. Let's hope CityJet see the opportunity that exists and introduce a link to London City Airport soon. While the casual traveller (such as myself) can take the Stansted or Gatwick options, the reality for business travellers such as yourself is an inconvenience which will not go unnoticed by management of companies, large and small, unless we can secure some link near to Londons' commercial district.

And while I hope Aer Orange get it up their hole on the Heathrow-RAF Aldergrove route, don't expect them to return the slots to Shannon, ever!. Already the argument of "commercial realism" has been preached to us by our betters in Dublin. Those slots will be either sold off to US airlines or they will take full advantage of "open Skies" to introduce a few North America - Heathrow nonstop services.

PaulSweeney

Hi There. Just thought you might like to know that I had to get up at 04.30 in the morning, to get a cab at 5.00 to be at their airport at 5.30 to be on a flight at 6.30. I had meetings in London at 12.00 and 15.00 so with a meeting length of aprox 90mins I would be finished my last meeting at 16.30, with a 15 minute trip to get to the tube that put me back in Liverpool St. station at about 16.45. One hour, yes, one hour on stanstead express brings you to 17.45. Flight time, 18.15. Too tight to book in and risk missing flight, and being stranded, so had to phone up during the day and change my already confirmed 18.15 time to 21.45 flight. So, I got home at about 12.00 midnight. A take away lesson, if you have a meeting in London, you just cannot book it for anything later than 14.00-14.30 if you want to make the 18.15 flight home. Remember, you are already up 1t circa 4.30 in the morning. If you travel to London every week, as I have to do this takes chunks out of three days and leaves employees tired and unproductive. The problem with "infratstructure" such as good electricity supply, water, and sunshine (sic) is that it is very difficult to tie them empirically to the conditions ideal for growing nice green plants. We will leach the soil under us unless we make it convienient for one city to do business with another.

Hoof

Had to laugh at the Aer Oráiste spokesman this morning trying to deflect questions about low load factors are on their new UK internal route with stock in trade responses. i.e. "load factors are up to expectations" ---so, your expectations were 35%!!..."today's flight is full" ---yes, inaugural ones usually are, he also happened to let it slip that a lot of schoolkids were being taken on the midday flight after winning an art competition, big payday there for Sir Dermot ..."One and a half million people live in the NI catchment area" ---conveniently forgetting to mention that eight airlines are now flying the same LON-BFS corridor and that British Airways pulled out 5 years ago for that reason...."we're selling well for summer"--- of course you are, you idiot, for one pound sterling even the most fervent of the brethren will snap up these bargains even if it means sitting on a plane with a tricolour on its livery.

I looked up their site and it's littered with these one pound fares for this route. Fares as low as €5 were rarely available from Shannon unless you booked an early morning flight some months in advance. In RAF Aldergrove they'll be losing money before the plane even taxis out. Looks like Mr."Going Forward" Mannion has his work cut out as he'll have to advertise like crazy to fill his planes out of Bertie's new colony.

BUilderfromhell

Booking hols for 2 adults and 2 kids to US this summer. Chose Delta without even considering aer Lingus.
In the old days when I lived in Lonodn I only flew home with UK carrier if Aer Lingus was booked. Ill considered national loyalty on reflection.

mitchell

As much as they have betrayed the republic, im sure if they wanted to come back to the route shannon would let them in with open arms, could you blame them really...

Course id much rather see another airline do the route and make the profit than those feckers

hazel

they dont give a damn about people travelling over and back to the uk to see their families or on buisness
i hope ryan air gets this slot in time

rhebogue ranter

You'll always get some that will fly with them but they've definetly left a bitter feeling behind.

I will go out of my way not to fly with Aer Finglas in future. They don't deserve our loyalty.

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