Eoghan Corry Talks Travel – November 2023

Eoghan Corry has the latest travel news at home and abroad including new routes from Dublin airport, airline capacity for 2024 and lots more.

New Routes and more Med cruises, but will the aircraft shortages impact us? Eoghan Corry has the latest travel talking points this month. 

New Route for Dublin Airport this Winter

This year we see a rarity in Dublin airport, a route launch in December: Dan Air will become the 44th airline serving the airport when it launches Dublin to Bacău on December 12, filling the void left by Blue Air.

New US Routes for 2024

Amid all the hullabaloo of new services from Aer Lingus from Dublin to Denver, and from JetBlue from Dublin to New York and Boston, it is easy to forget some of the exciting things that other airlines are doing on transatlantic from Ireland next year.

Delta launched their own new route from Dublin to Minneapolis next summer, in opposition to the resumed Aer Lingus service.

United, surprisingly, did not launch their Dublin to San Francisco service, due to start in 2020 but a casualty of Covid, or indeed their long anticipated direct service to Denver, where they have better connectivity and feed than Aer Lingus. Presumably both are still on the agenda, should aircraft deliveries get back on track.

American Airlines have extended their Dallas service to year-round. With the Aer Lingus and United codeshare has ended and Aer Lingus are cavorting with American Airlines instead, a gentleman’s agreement still exists between Aer Lingus on United allowing Aer Lingus frequent fliers lounge access in San Francisco.

This may clear the way for another long awaited move, United going year-round Dublin to Chicago, something they have not done to date, presumably for fear of ruffling the shamrock. The service between Shannon Airport and Chicago from United, in the meantime, fills an important void for the west.

A quick look at how much you will pay to fly from Dublin to New York after JetBlue enter the market, shows the major airlines, offering remarkably similar airfares. Let’s just see how long that will last.

Air Canada will start later on Dublin to Vancouver route in summer 20204 than previously anticipated due to aircraft availability. It has been a great summer for Air Canada, and remember they are the only airline that will check your bag through at Toronto without having to reclaim it and put it through customs. They also have Dublin and Shannon style pre clearance in Toronto for onward connections to the USA.

Another low cost indirect service to North America will be on offer next year, from Azores via Porto. They have Dublin on their hit list to feed into that service. We are a long way from the days when Wow and Icelandair both offered low cost via Keflavik, but the indirect service from Icelandic carrier Play may also push the price of air fares in an interesting direction. Don’t check in a bag, though.

New Hotel for Belfast

It sometimes goes unnoticed that Belfast hotel capacity is under pressure just as much as Dublin or Galway, with the proportion of rooms on government contracts even higher than Dublin.

A welcome relief then, that Room2 has opened an aparthotel with 175 rooms on Queen Street within a shout of the City Hall. They describe it as a hometel, because, presumably, it is like being at home without having to put the bins out.

Will the January Sales start early?

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but will it be an Ebeneezer Christmas or a Chocolate Santa Christmas for those who love to travel? The big aviation sales used to start as soon as the last slice of turkey had been snaffled and the wishbone had been pulled.

At one stage one third of all holidays were sold in a short period, and the holiday sales from Aer Lingus and Budget travel were stadium events, complete with a fabricated queue on Baggot Street.

Nowadays, the sales are flagged a lot earlier and are more limited in scope than they used to be, with most of them keeping the juicy summer tickets off the seasonal table.

BA jumped in mid December last year and had the most generous terms, with seats available all the way to September. Let the carols begin.

Good news for value cruisers

The conflict in the Middle East has led to a rapid reshuffling of cruise ship homeports. Israel is disappearing off the agenda for most major cruise ship companies in 2024, and Egypt is about to follow.

This will mean a greater concentration of cruise ships and their passengers in the western rather than the eastern Med, and the emergence of Valencia as an alternative homeport of scale.

Given Ireland’s airlift is so large to both Barcelona and Valencia, and virtually non-existent to Genoa, now that Ryanair have pulled its service from Dublin, this could be good news for those seeking a value cruise in 2024. To add momentum to the mix, Valencia have ditched their proposed tourist tax for the region.

Ryanair and Boeing Woes

Boeing and Ryanair are not likely to be kissing under the mistletoe anytime soon. Michael O’Leary ordered 57 new aircraft for the Summer 2024 peak travel season .Ryanair had initially expected to receive 27 aircraft between September and December but will now only receive 14.

Now Michael is throwing his 737s out of the pram, and says if they arrive too late, he will send them back. It is just as well that Santa has stopped giving lumps of coal at Christmas (for sustainability reasons, presumably).

At first glance, Michael O’Leary’s warning of 20pc hikes in air fares next summer should not worry us too much in Ireland. The delays of the Boeing 737 Max sound more dramatic than they would be if Ryanair had not been running into problems in finding airports to place their aircraft, as the big post pandemic discounts on offer from Italian and Spanish regional airports dry up.

Airline capacity for 2024

Of huge concern to airlines who fly the Airbus 320 (though not Aer Lingus) is the recall of Pratt & Whitney engines. This will mostly affect Wizz, who were long ago chased out of Ireland by Ryanair, and the Lufthansa group who now may have to stall plans to launch a new subsidiary airline of their own.

All of this will lead to an interesting summer with passenger appetite for travel back to close to 2019 levels and airline capacity down by anything up to 10ps, mainly in Germany and Eastern Europe. The figures from Eurocontrol and the airports groups, unveiled during the round of conferences in October, show that Europe’s appetite for travel is still a long way short of 2019.

Ryanair’s success, the only airline in the world who are 25pc ahead of pre pandemic passenger numbers, is because they are eating somebody else’s lunch, growing market share at everybody else’s expense rather than growing the market.

World Travel Market London: Take Aways

The middle east is getting bigger and Africa is shrinking, Europe is back to pre pandemic levels but the rest of the world is not, and “carbon neutral itineraries” (whatever they are?) are the latest response to flight shaming.

As countries compete to be more sustainable than each other, some of the boldest claims are being made by big oil producing countries. Is this a coincidence?