Aer Lingus to operate Virgin Atlantic's Scottish flights

The problem with these flights is always going to be frequency (or rather lack of it).

With the proposed frequency connections at LHR are going to be too long in a lot of cases meaning people will often choose BA anyway.

As for competing with BA for the business travellers, without similar frequency to BA their is no incentive to pay high end fares which is the only hope a full service carrier has of breaking even on UK domestic routes.

Following the purchase the availability of these seats dried up as BA stopped offering these to ‘non’ One-World carriers

I’ve just booked GLA/LHR(BA)/LHR/HKG(VS) for my parents through the VS website. BA interline with dozens of non-Oneworld airlines.

Hi folks. I think that the thing you’ve got to remember here is that these are designed to be feeder flights and nothing else. Virgin America along with Virgin Australia are technically stand alone airlines with very little connection to Virgin Atlantic apart from the name.

The new venture is designed to a) provide alternative competition to BA on domestic routes (not a bad thing), and b) provide connecting traffic from the regions to Virgin’s own long haul services.

Up until the BA purchase, BMI offered many other carriers (including Virgin) seats on their domestic flights to connect with the carriers own services out of London. Following the purchase the availability of these seats dried up as BA stopped offering these to ‘non’ One-World carriers. They therefore gained some form of monopoly on feeder traffic. This has taken away business from these carriers (including Virgin, along with SQ, AC and UA) and so I wouldn’t be surprised if the new ‘VS’ domestic flights didn’t gain some new code-share flight codes. It would also help to ensure that VS were filling the services too, plus with Delta purchasing 49% of Virgin recently you can bet you bottom dollar that they’ll have a DL code-share before long.

I beleive the lease on the aircraft will be minimum 3 years, they will be painted into the full Virgin scheme and all crew will be in Virgin uniform. Whether they do give the interior a spruce up or not is another matter, but no one has said that they aren’t. The amount of time you will spend on them however is minimal. The full ‘Virgin’ experience is what you will get after you get to London.

On the point of a separate cabin, BMI didn’t make a business class cabin work on domestic flights so why would Virgin risk it? In the by-gone era people would happily pay an extra £100.00 for a bit of extra leg room on a 30 minute flight, sitting on the other side of a curtain with a cream scone. How many people would ‘or could’ justify that now in this economic climate? They’ve got more chance of making it work by offering low-fares, plus they’ll be strong competition from BA.

I believe it was intially stated that Avion Express would operate the flights but then for some reason that statement was changed to Aer lingus. Not certain though.

Hi Folks,

Maybe am getting too old for my shoes or a little bit confused but according to the latest issue of Airliner World it states that the flights for Virgin will be ACMId and operated by AVION EXPRESS that small ACMI operator from Lithuania but now you guys are saying its Aer Lingus which is it please not that it makes any world of difference since it wont be a full VA experience but still Aer Lingus is not Avion Express??

Help an old man be clear
KA:diablo:

These flights were always going to be wet-lease so no surprise there except that I might have expected an ACMI specialist rather than EI.

Let’s face it VS domestics are just another example of Branson having bright ideas that VS management then have to implement to save face on his behalf. I don’t think anyone expects these flights to be around for long (even VS given the wet-lease vs in-house decision) so I also didn’t expect any major investment in aircraft cabins.

Perhaps the ground products and inflight service will differentiate them from BA domestics but I doubt it, they are going to struggle to make money on these flights as it is without spending a fortune on what they offer in terminals and onboard.

I really rate VS as an airline but if Branson put as much effort into his business as he does trying to get one up on BA I’d rate them more.

I’d prefer them to offer onboard WiFi rather than IFE.

Have you ever tried onboard WIFI? 😀

The speed is similar to that experienced with the old ’90s dial-up modems… in short, not that fast.

Well VA seem to be able to offer IFE on their short-distance flights…SFO-LAS is only 90mins long, and SFO-LAX is just 80mins, which is about the same time as a LHR-EDI flight…?

I’d prefer them to offer onboard WiFi rather than IFE.

BA recently got permission to run IFE gate to gate from the CAA, I don’t see why VS couldn’t either? and as for there not being enough time, Alitalia manage it.

Indeed Matt, according to one source I read it will also be a single cabin too, so no Business Class or even an Economy Plus section…very disappointing and un-Virgin like!

Had they of chosen to do something like Virgin America, then I think they could have made quite a bit of an impact, but I am not so sure now.

The flight is too short for IFE. By the time you finish with your meal and tea/coffee, you’re on initial approach and the IFE would be switched off anyway.

Had they of chosen to do something like Virgin America, then I think they could have made quite a bit of an impact, but I am not so sure now.

Couldn’t agree more. If they’d gone with a Virgin America style cabin, I may have booked a flight to try it out – but now there’s no incentive! If I wanted to fly Aer Lingus, I’d fly Aer Lingus :rolleyes:

Isn’t there a fleet surplus at Virgin America that could have been leased to VS? Last month VA announced they were scaling back expansion in 2013.

Alas, I’ll still be happy to photograph this sexy bird – don’t be afraid of that! :p

Indeed Matt, according to one source I read it will also be a single cabin too, so no Business Class or even an Economy Plus section…very disappointing and un-Virgin like!

Had they of chosen to do something like Virgin America, then I think they could have made quite a bit of an impact, but I am not so sure now.

Well that’s a let down 🙁

I guess we can say goodbye to the proposed “uniquely Virgin experience”. And assuming VS don’t redesign the Aer Lingus cabin – their A320s will seat 18 more than the BA domestic A320s…

Once again, all hype and a disappointing product from Virgin Atlantic.