@PJordan Aer Lingus does you proud with reintroducing Business class in europe!

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Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

  • SwissExPat
    Participant

    And we thought business class in Europe was dying!

    Now PatJordan really has something to shout about !!

    https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/aer-lingus-bringing-back-business-class-on-european-flights-1.3730604

    Aer Lingus will (partialy) introduce a proper European busines class product by using the inbound a321 ER to fly on to europe after depositing their EX USA pax in Dublin and serve such destionations as LHR,BCN, CDG and AMS.

    Hence expect a full business class lie flat product ex BCN,AMS etc on the return leg via Dublin with Pre Clearence in Dublin also?

    Well done!


    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    It’s good to see EI reintroduce business class on some European routes.

    But I do have a concern and its schedule reliability.

    Is it wise to utilise these A321LRs on both short- and long-haul routes ?

    I’m thinking about reliability.

    As we all know in winter transatlantic flights can get disrupted by bad weather while in summer it is congestion, ATC strikes etc which impact on schedules here in Europe.


    PatJordan
    Participant

    SwissExPat,

    I’m honoured to have my name feature in a thread, particularly one started by a well respected forum member.

    Equally I welcome the return of Business Class on European flights, and look forward to sampling the new service.

    Safe travels to all.


    Flightlevel
    Participant

    Surprised why more airlines don’t do this since a 5-6 hour return (including stops,etc.) after a TATL 16+ hour return is perfect utilisation.
    It obviously depends on timing however one sector TATL can be overnight to most EU airports, and if longer TATL flights they can use aircraft for shorter EU returns.
    Maybe they just want pax to suffer in 30″/31″ pitch on short flights!


    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    [quote quote=909925]Surprised why more airlines don’t do this since a 5-6 hour return (including stops,etc.) after a TATL 16+ hour return is perfect utilisation.[/quote]

    I realise that some Asian airlines have such operations but here in Europe most transatlantic flights are with wide-body aircraft with different business class layouts.

    In addition wide-body aircraft are less economical on short routes. These now require shorter turnaround times. The latter will be more difficult to achieve with B747/B777 compared to B737/A320.

    Last but not least to my mind would be on how it might affect schedule integrity.

    Today for example Storm Deirdre is resulting in flights being cancelled and delayed at Dublin.


    Flightlevel
    Participant

    +1
    It would have to be exceptional maybe in summer with heavy loads to EU destinations (except next summer!).
    IB operate an A346 or A350 (to train?) on relatively short MAD-LHR for heavy freight loads I believe, and AF tried using larger aircraft a few years back.
    BA used B767s into EU so probably B789s can do the same schedule on return from North America?
    Its probably the turnaround not meeting slot times already planned?


    TominScotland
    Participant

    Essentially, this is the Icelandair model which has been in place for many years and there are risks attached to it – I remember long delays at Keflavik for onward connections to London/ Glasgow because the inbound from the US had been delayed or had a technical issue on arrival. It does make for great fleet utilisation, however. In both the FI and EI cases, the model is based on utilising narrow bodied aircraft which probably means that slotting them in and out of existing slots and gates at airports such as LHR is made that much easier.

    I also think that Finnair do this to a limited extent. I think their first LHR departure in the morning is an A350 which has just arrived from Asia.


    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    [quote quote=909991]and AF tried using larger aircraft a few years back.
    BA used B767s into EU so probably B789s can do the same schedule on return from North America?
    Its probably the turnaround not meeting slot times already planned?[/quote]

    Flightlevel – The AF services were only for a limited period and were designed to show off its latest long-haul aircraft. For example, AF would use its A380 on CDG-LHR.

    Problem with BA using long-haul aircraft into mainland Europe (on a regular basis) is that the product would conflict with the standard offering.


    cwoodward
    Participant

    I found Alex reference to aircraft utilisation per day interesting so took a look at a few annual reports as these normally carry this sort of information.

    Aircraft utilisation hours per day across the fleet

    United = 7.27
    BA = 10.43
    CX = 12.34 (including Cathay Dragon mostly 2 to 4 hour flight.
    QF = 8.40 (2015-16)

    BA’s utilisation is better than I expected it to be given a high number of short haul flights and a very mixed fleet but which are presumably well balanced by the number of long haul flights.

    CX operates their long haul aircraft also to many short haul Asian destinations as EI is intending to do. Clearly this strategy has worked well for Cathay for some years and on the face of it should work well for EI. The caveat perhaps being the relatively small size of the EI fleet.

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