It’s also understood that the carrier is undertaking a review of its capacity deployment in the context of the passenger cap at Dublin Airport, which isn’t allowed under an existing planning condition to handle more than 32 million passengers a year.
And while the Aer Lingus now expects to receive all the six Airbus A321 XLR jets that had previously been allocated to the carrier, they will be used in the context of that overall reassessment of its network and capacity, it’s understood. That could see it remove a larger A330 from service on routes to the US, for example, replacing it with an XLR and then redeploying that A330 elsewhere.
Aer Lingus has seen more competition out of Dublin on transatlantic routes from rivals such as JetBlue and Delta.
The airline, part of the IAG group that also owns British Airways, Iberia and Vueling, confirmed on Monday that it will reduce the service by two departures a day from Dublin starting this winter.
That will see the carrier operate between nine and 10 departures a day in the coming winter, compared to the 11 to 12 it had last winter. Next summer, the airline will have between 11 and 12 departures a day from Dublin to Heathrow compared to the 13 to 14 it has this summer. Business travel on the route is about 75pc of what it was before the pandemic, it’s believed.
“Aer Lingus is continuing to assess the implications of the financial damage caused by the pilot industrial dispute in the context of the current competitive environment and the passenger cap at Dublin Airport,” said a spokesperson for the airline.
“This includes a review of the weaker parts of the airline’s network and its cost base,” they added. “In that context, Aer Lingus is reducing its Dublin – London Heathrow operation from winter 2024 onwards – by approximately two departures per day. This decision was taken because the performance of these services had not recovered post Covid.”
When IAG acquired Aer Lingus in 2015, the government – which owned just over 25pc of the carrier at the time – obtained two key binding undertakings from the airline group that saw the takeover go ahead.
One of them was that the 23 take-off and landing slots controlled by Aer Lingus at Heathrow would only be used to service routes to Ireland for at least seven years. That commitment expired in 2022. The government also secured the legal right to veto any disposal of those slots.
The two slots that Aer Lingus will no longer be using to serve Dublin from Heathrow will now be used by British Airways.
While the slots will be leased by Aer Lingus to British Airways, the transaction was considered an effective disposal under the takeover deal with government.
As such, Aer Lingus secured permission from the Department of Finance and the Department of Transport for the deal.
Aer Lingus was set to be the launch customer for the new XLR aircraft, but the pilot strike at the carrier saw the first new jet go to Iberia instead.
Aer Lingus had said during the dispute that if the action was prolonged or resulted in too high a pay award, that it might not receive any of the XLRs as IAG would not be able to justify the capital investment in the Irish carrier.
However, it will receive its first XLR in November and a second in December. The remaining four are likely to be delivered to Aer Lingus between February and September next year.
