Irish Aviation Research Institute

                                                              Ryanair continues to deliver stellar profitability in a very tough environment while competitors struggle to restore profitability in the European short-haul market, announcing a Q1 operating profit of €132 million and net profit of €99 million down 29% vs. 2011 on revenues of €1.284 Billion carrying 22.5 million passengers up 6% with a load factor of 82% down 1% with cash reserves of €3.808 billion. The Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary stated " Ryanair continues to grow its traffic across Europe while maintaining the lowest unit costs in the airline industry, and generating healthy profits as evidenced by the 8% after tax margin achieved in the first quarter, We continue to see significant opportunities to grow across Europe as many airports aggressively compete to attract Ryanair’s traffic growth". The carrier’s ancillary revenues continue to grow strongly up 15% to €285.9 million in the long-term ancil

                                                      Aer Lingus and Etihad Airways yesterday (Monday 30th July 2012) announced a new code-share and interline agreement which will come into effect from the third quarter leveraging the natural strengths of their perspective networks in Dublin and Abu Dhabi. Etihad Airways operates 10 flights a week from Abu Dhabi to Dublin using Airbus A330-200s and has carried more than 817,000 passengers between the two capitals since it began flying the route in July, 2007. Aer Lingus and Etihad Airways use terminal 2 at Dublin Airport. Aer Lingus become the 36th partnership carrier with Etihad Airways following the airline taking a 2.987% stake in Aer Lingus. Interestingly both carriers have a partnership with Jetblue Airways in New York JFK where Aer Lingus will switch terminals in early 2013. The partnership will see Etihad Airways will place its “EY” code on Aer Lingus flights between Dublin, Manchester and London Heathrow, and destinat

                                                  Two Malev Airlines Boeing 737-700s  stored at Dublin Airport following the carrier ceasing operations on Friday 3rd February 2012 have since departed for new pastures to new lessors Smartwings & Transaero Airlines.  A joint collobration of based MRO's Dublin Aerospace & Eirtech Aviation Ltd prepared the aircraft for delivery to new customers.                                                       The first aircraft HA-LOI Boeing 737-7Q8 c/n 29350 arrived in Dublin around 2130 operating the scheduled service MAH622 from Budapest on 2nd of February, however it was unable to depart on the morning of the 3rd of February as the carrier ceased operations at 0500GMT.  The aircraft was subsequently registered EI-EUW to ILFC Ireland Ltd on the 3rd of March and was delivered to Vilinus on lease to Transaero Airlines on the 20th of June (Planespotters.net).                                           The second aircraft HA-LO

                                                                                                            On Sunday 15th July the Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary became the first offical passenger to arrive at the newly opened Warsaw Modlin Airport on a special flight from Dublin.  The flight was operated by EI-EVF Boeing 737-8AS/WL  c/n 40291 carrying new Polish titles 'Modlin Jest Ok!' translated 'Modlin is ok!'. The launch of new routes from Warsaw Modlin marks Ryanair's return to the Warsaw market after a gap of four years as the carrier perviously terminated routes to Warsaw Chopin in 2008 after a landing charges dispute. The Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary stated 'That's why Modlin provides such an opportunity. It's still not particularly cheap here but it has lower costs than at Chopin airport, and it gives us an important lower-cost gateway'.                                                                                    

                                                    The recent announcements by Ryanair to cut capacity at Barcelona & Madrid (20th July), the Canary Islands (19th July), Greek Islands (18th May), Morocco (28th June) demonstrates the airline management laser beam focus on continuous unit cost reduction, thus being able to flex it's assets to where they can be re-deployed at a lower cost (existing bases or new bases) or parked as has been the case the last two winters 80 + aircraft. The announcements by Ryanair will see the carrier cut the frequency on the Dublin-Barcelona route also the carrier will close routes from Fuertaventura to Ireland West Knock Airport, Las Palmas to Shannon and Tenerife South to Cork Airport, although Aer Lingus serves these routes from it's Cork & Dublin Bases. The airline operates no routes from it's Irish bases to the Greek Islands or Morocco. On the 26th of June the Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary stated the airline planned to

                                                    Aer Lingus announced from Sunday 28th of October it's moving to Belfast City Airport after an extensive competitive tendering process with Belfast City & Belfast International airports. The opportunity for the RFP was a result of British Airways announcing it was closing the Bmibaby Base at Belfast City following the acquisition of the carrier and subsequent operations review thus creating a void to be filled by another carrier at Belfast City. The Aer Lingus move underpins it's €100 million investment in Northern Ireland having established a base in Belfast International five years ago and it's commitment to the Northern Ireland market. This announcement will see the carrier re-structure the Belfast route network accordingly routes to Alicante, Barcelona, Faro, Las Palmas, Lanzorate, Malaga, Tenerife South will cease effective 28th October. The routes to the Canary Islands are apparently being axed due to run

                                                        The prospect of Dublin Airport becoming a 'Fortress' Airport remains a real prospect in the event of a successful take-over of Aer Lingus by Ryanair already the two carriers including Aer Lingus Regional account for 83.9% of total Dublin Airport Traffic (UBM Aviation Routes May 2012). According to Anna.aero (June 2012) Ryanair competes on 73% of the Aer Lingus route network indirectly or directly out of Dublin Airport. The etablishment of Aer Lingus Regional has seen the Aer Lingus brand re-enter markets too large to justify Airbus A320 equipment (Bristol) and to feed it's Transatlantic route network, interestingly it has filled the gap left by Ryanair exiting UK city pairs to Aberdeen, Blackpool and Bournemouth also increasing frequenices to Edinburgh & Glasgow. Since the collapse of the Celtic Tiger and subsequent recession traffic into Ireland has collapsed by 23%  (Anna.aero February 2012), with indic

                                                      Cityjet has announced it is to launch a new route from it's London City Base to Munster-Osnabruck airport operating daily from the 28th of October using Fokker F50s marking it's first route in the German market. The carrier identfied a gap in the market following the decision of Air Berlin to terminate the Munster-Osnabruck route leaving the London market without an connection. The Cityjet CEO Christine Ourmieres stated : "By starting services to Münster, CityJet is expanding its appeal to the UK MICE industry as well as facilitating a new trade corridor for the rapidly expanding British green technologies and renewable energies market". The carrier achieved a significant milestone at London City Airport on the Wednesday 11th  July 2012 when the millionth movement, which arrived  at 0850 on Wednesday was CityJet RJ85 AF5118 from Dublin. The airline has been serving LCY for 18 years having commenced the r

                                                    I have complied a single source list of social media news sources for  Farnborough International  & RIAT 2012 Airshows I hope you find this page as useful.  Facebook:  Farnborough International Airshow: https://www.facebook.com/FarnboroughAirshow RIAT Arrivals & Timings: https://www.facebook.com/pages/RIAT-Arrivals-Timings/137742086293818                                                     Twitter Hashtag News Feeds: Twitter News Feed Farnborough: #FARN12 #FIA12 Twitter News Feed RIAT: #RIAT #RIAT12 Twitter List: Flightglobal Public List of journalists covering Farnborough Air Show https://twitter.com/#!/Flightglobal/farnborough12 Twitter To Follow:  @Farnborough2012 Farnborough International Airshow (FIA) showcases the best of the global aerospace industry takes place 9th - 15th July. @Farnboroughspot Farnborough spotters will provide unofficial news and info on Farnboroughairport incl

                                                             The Aer Lingus Group including Aer Lingus Regional announced it carried 918,000 passengers in June up 4%.The airline carried 99,000 long-haul passengers up 12.5% with a load factor of 92.4% up 9% on an 0.1% increase in capacity and it carried 819,000 short-haul passengers up 0.1% with a load factor of 78.1% up 1.4% on flat capacity as two Airbus A320s where returned to lessors. The Aer Lingus Regional operation carried 95,000 passengers up 41.8% and year to date it been a strong growth driver carrying 447,000 passengers up 31% exceeding the performance of Long-haul’s 433,000 passengers, as usual figures exclude traffic carried on the joint-venture United Airlines Washington Dulles to Madrid route. The June figures demonstrate the success of its business model with strong performance on the Transatlantic with passenger numbers up 12.5% with load factors up 9% indicating a considerable volume may be using Dublin

                                                                   The consumer will be the ultimate winner this winter as three airlines (Aer Lingus, Norwegian Air Shuttle, SAS Airlines) compete for market share on the Dublin to Copenhagen route as Aer Lingus returns to the route with a daily A320 service from the 28 th of October.                                                           This will mark the fourth return to the route for Aer Lingus (2001, 2004, 2007), in addition to existing services on the route from Norwegian Air Shuttle operating twice weekly and SAS Airlines operating thirteen times weekly.                                                         Aer Lingus has been developing its brand presence in the Scandinavian & Nordic markets having launched a seasonal summer route to Helsinki  in  March 2010 and Stockholm route for summer 2012, however in an interesting development the airline has extended the Stockholm route to a year