rdc1000I thought the same until I realised… Female captain!
Paul
Ahh, I get that now, well done, well spotted, although referring to her as lesbian would have been easier (and acceptable in PC terms).
rdc1000If your coming from Manchester have you considered Emirates..don’t know about their economy service but their business class is as good as first class on some other major airlines
No, their business class is dated and poor quality, thats not to say the service is bad, but poor seating. Out of MAN the best business class on the route would probably be SIA, although the business class product of Etihad and Qatar is good, and better (in terms of seat/space etc) than Emirates, but I don’t think they do Perth to connect to.
MAS have 34-inch seat pitch, as do Air New Zealand now, so a trip to LHR and then via NZ to Oz may be possible, albeit it would be a long detour just to go at 34-inch.
rdc1000The only gay crewmember was the Captain, whose girlfriend is cabin crew.
1L.
So something has gone wrong then LOL
rdc1000I have to also be honest, I think that’s getting towards political correctness gone mad! Do gay people not have a sense of humour? The several very close friends I have who are gay certainly do and I can’t see anything so far they would find even in the least bit offensive (except perhaps the ‘shirtlifter’ comment and the way it was put across, but even that was hardly done in a hugely offensive way).
Paul
I’m not a big fan of PC to that extent, and take things within context. To be honest, it was the shirt lifter comment that stood out!
rdc1000I have to be honest, I think a couple of comments on this page are verging on offensive, I’m not suggesting they’re supposed to be, but I think people should be careful as I’m sure Key wouldn’t be happy to think it had become a bashing board.
But on the overall subject, I think that as a split there are probably more gay cabin crew than straight, but probably a lot more straight cabin crew than people realise. I think the wider issue is that Aviation, as an industry, attracts a lot of gay men, and it filters right through the airline and airport businesses, from senior management to front line customer service roles. Again, I cannot explain this, but in my experience it does.
rdc1000With a lot of schedule alterations taking place to their existing LHR operation to accomodate the change.
Some good and some bad, but we won’t know for sure what they’re going to do for a few weeks. Looks like a loss of a LAX and a JFK frequency. At the same time the dayflight from BOS to LHR will be replaced by a dayflight from MIA instead.
Great news for those of us who enjoy quick weekend breaks in South Beach! 😀
The source I’ve seen suggests that AA has managed to get hold of additional slots at LHR (though not clear who they’ve bought them from) for the new services. That would suggest any other alterations are not directly related.
rdc1000One reason it didn’t work was because their just isn’t enough demand for just a LPL – JFK route – COA make it work from various airports around the UK because of their well structured hub at Newark. Alot of COA passengers fly to NY only to transit onwards. Obviously FlyGlobespan didn’t have this facility.
Exactly the point I made in the last thread on this topic.
rdc1000But can there be guarantees that the same long-haul routes will continue to be operated? A bigger company (say, BA for the sake of argument) buys out that part of the company (getting the slots and a few A330s and whatever else) – what if they decide to shuttle people from Dublin to Heathrow, then long-haul them?
Just checking, and Aer Lingus do daily flights from Dublin to LA, New York, Boston & Chicago, probably more.
Thats 4 convention cities in the US – I reckon there would be a detrimental impact on the Irish economy if those flights were lost.
It would not be a point that the EU could consider. They are looking directly at consumer issues related to the markets in which FR and EI may be perceived to compete, that is to say the short haul European market. The fact is, if EI was just a long haul airline then this woudl never have got this far, it would have been rubber stamped long ago.
In actual fact there is no guarantee that these routes will continue to be served, but then there is no guarentee that EI will continue to serve the routes themselves, with or without FR as their owners (although we can assume they have no reason to drop them, but the point is that the airline could drop them if they wished, they would not need any approval to do so from their Government or the EU, and therefore it is a mute point). If BA or similar wanted to buy the long haul arm of EI then they would have to go through the same process that FR is going through at the moment, so the potential purchase would go firstly to domestic competition regulators, and then possibly (depending on the domestic views) to the EU to determine whether that would be an anti-competitve purchase. In actual fact, it would be unlikely to be determined as anti-competitive though because closure of the EI long haul routes from DUB would, by the nature of the airline market, allow new route introductions by other carriers, assuming that there are no barriers to entry, mainly regarding slots.
The EU are looking at the FR/EI merger because there could be a lack of scope for new entrants into the Dublin-Europe markets because FR/EI hold the lucrative slots. Mergers will often be allowed on the basis of ‘Remedies’, that is solutions to overcome the anti-competitive nature of a merger/acquistion. So for example, KLM/Air France had to give up 658 weekly slots at their combined airports, to allow entry onto routes on which they had previosuly been competitors. Lufthansa/Swiss had to give up 854 combined slots etc etc. The problem is that the remedy for FR/EI is probably too great to make the merger viable.
rdc1000Surley, this is one of the major reasons for the EU’s objections…as this would have a huge impact on Ireland as a country in itself and its economy, as this would mean that people would have to connect via London or another European hub, which surely would not go down well with the ‘time is money’ business traveller or even a tourist for that matter. Not sure about anyone else, but if I was visiting Ireland from a far-away country (take USA for example!) I would much prefer a direct/non-stop service to the country that I am travelling to, rather than having the hassle of connecting via airport and possibly another plane if the first plane was not doing the second leg of the journey!
Hope this makes sense?!
Do you not feel the same?
Well, no, it doesn’t make sense really. The EU would struggle to object on this point, because FR and EI do not compete in the LH market, and therefore by buying out EI, there would be no loss in the number of competitor choices available to consumers when selecting a long haul service. The fact that FR may choose to sell the LH product menas that there will still be the same number of competing airlines before and after the acquisition on the LH markets.
As for the benefit of LH direct services. In actual fact, to the business traveller, this is less of an issue, and is something I’m looking closely at for forecasting at the moment for some work I’m doing. The frequency of service needed to attract a high level of business travellers is quite high, suggesting that frequency is more important than a direct servcie, and therefore the benefits of frequency can be obtained through hubbing. That isn’t to say that direct services are not beneficial, but MAY be overstated in some cases, with too much reliance put on them. Its more of an issue for leisure travellers I think.
rdc1000All far too easy.
rdc1000If he was ever successful in his attempt, can anyone tell whether he would run the company seperate to FR or would he merge the two together?
I have to confess to knowing quite a bit about the merger. The idea is that FR and EI will remain SEPERATE airlines. Ryanair view them as having distinctly seperate markets, and providing different things to different people, and therefore do not want to merge EI into their own ops.
They do however, feel that there is further scope for cost cutting at EI, without eroding the product (or making it the same as FR), and that this will benefit the Irish economy overall by providing a stronger carrier with which to serve the interests of business travellers to and from the country.
The long haul element of EI will be SOLD if the acquisition was succesful, as it does not fit the core market that FR beleive EI should be strengthened in.
Is that any help?
rdc1000A VITAL piece of news if you work for JXT, or are waiting for one of their flights.
Although, yes, they are SLIGHTLY smaller than Big Airways…:rolleyes:
I think there were not many waiting for their flights in the first place, I think thats what’s done it. LOL
rdc1000SHOCKING:eek: :diablo:
rdc1000WHy cant that stupid Irishman accept that he cant take over aer lingus unless he has about 60-80% shares in the company
LOL, you clearly do not understand the process taking place here. RYR are seeking EU Competition Clearance to purchase a majority stake. As one of the best businessmen and accountants (his background) around, I think he understands how to buy a business, do you honestly think the company do not undestand this??:dev2:
It is not as simple as just buying as many shares as possible, because they would just have to sell them again if the purchase was viewed as anti-compeititve. The EU CC are going to struggle I think on an appeal in the courts and RYR will make them pay heavily. Just need to look at mergers such as TAP/Potugalia (which was approved domestically without the EU CC getting involved) to realise that there are more anti-competitive mergers that have been approved.
rdc1000LPL have shot themselves in the foot really on this one I feel. GSM does not have the marketing power in this region of the UK, or NYC, to really attract the passengers. It would be easier if they used the CRS’s because then the route would show itself, but they’re not good at advertising. This is going to make JFK services look wholly uncredible to potential airlines that could have operated it in the future. They jumped at GSM and its backfiring, they’d have been better waiting a bit longer and attracting a hub carrier, the market is reasonable, and with DL, CO and AA looking to use 757s to regional points their time may have come, even with MAN nearby.
Sign In
