British Airways is set to gain another x20 slots at LHR if Ryanair succeeds in its latest hostile bid for Irish rival Aer Lingus.
BA’s owner, IAG, has agreed a preliminary but non-binding deal with Ryanair which would give it x20 of Aer Lingus’ 24 landing slots at Heathrow if the takeover gets the green light.
http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/ba-could-take-over-aer-lingus-slots
Whilst I would welcome the takeover in principle, I feel that Virgin Atlantic should also get an opportunity to be able to bid for at least a few of these slots too seeing as they recently won the rights to the other domestic slots at LHR, and allowing them to operate routes between London and Ireland will further increase competition…otherwise BA will get away with yet more monopolies on routes, thus allowing them to increase fares as they see fit?
Also, if the takeover does go ahead, I wonder what will happen with EI’s fleet, seeing as they operate an entire Airbus fleet, whereas FR operate Boeings? Plus, I wonder what would happen to the long-haul routes, will Ryanair look to launch a low-cost long-haul arm or simply just sell/lease the aircraft out to another carrier?
By: Matt-100 - 20th December 2012 at 19:02
Whilst I would welcome the takeover in principle, I feel that Virgin Atlantic should also get an opportunity to be able to bid for at least a few of these slots too
Do you not think MOL would have done this? He probably played BA & VS off of each other to get the most money from the slots, and unsurprisingly, BA won the bid.
But I don’t really see why FR want EI? EI is hardly big competition, despite it being the home territory, Ireland makes up a fraction of FR’s revenue.
If the deal does go through (and I doubt it will), I expect FR will be forced to continue operating the long haul EI routes by the Irish government. I expect they’ll want to keep the transport links with key global markets (eg US).
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December 20, 2012 at 12:46 pm