I don’t believe it to have ever been in Ryanair’s nature to directly compete with EZY.

… other than on the following routes:

The skies are getting increasingly crowded. The LCCs have little choice but to tread on each other’s toes more and more often.

Over-capacity?

Hi,

This struck me as being a rather odd choice of route for EI.

After having taken a beating on DUB – LPL, they have chosen a market where conditions are arguably worse.

In my view, there is already over-capacity in the DUB – NCL / MME market. Although FR have succeeded in increasing passenger numbers on DUB – NCL, load factors have been weak since the introduction of the B738s (see CAA stats). DUB – MME has been suffering from a similar problem, which has led to the frequency reduction over the winter. Now EI are trying to join what appears to be an already saturated market.

FRs’s dominance of the UK – Ireland market shows clearly that price beats service in the vast majority of cases and EIs average short haul fare is nearly double that of FR. Consequently, I would be surprised if EI are still flying NCL – DUB in a years time, but then again, my predictions are usually spectacularly wrong…

The market will decide.