danielflyer

I’ve flown two EI TATL runs in the last week. Both were delayed 1.5 hours for the same reason— a late incoming aircraft from MAN. A quick look at FlightAware shows that every TATL flight in the last week to Seattle has been delayed for presumably the same reason.

Have others noticed this on North America flights? I wonder why they don’t just update the flight schedule.

irishguy28

In the past week, the aircraft operating EI53 to SEA was inbound from either LAX or SFO, and none of the aircraft that operated any of the services had been in Manchester at any time in the recent past that's visible on FR24, so "a late incoming aircraft from MAN" cannot have been the reason for the delay (unless EI crew members rostered for the Seattle flight live in Manchester!).

Which route were you on?

mccartje

I'd be fairly certain they can't just change the flight schedule as they please and that it is a nominally fixed airport slot they should be trying to stick to despite any recurrent delays which I assume the airport will start to get on their case about if it is persistent.

strowger

I think it's just a standard EI lie:

I observed EI209 (MAN-DUB) recently:
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ei209

Typically runs 40-90 minutes later than scheduled, with 120 minutes not uncommon.
The handling by EI at MAN was beyond awful. It showed on the departure boards at MAN as "on time" until after the stated departure time, and a long queue formed at the gate with no sign of any EI staff and no information provided to the poor punters waiting for it.
The aircraft left the departure point for the previous flight, inbound to MAN, around the time it was supposed to be departing MAN so there is no excuse for "on time" being displayed, especially as it hadn't operated "on time" at any point during the past 3 weeks. EI ops know their schedule is balls and they just don't give a toss.

Once eventually boarded, the excuse provided was "delayed awaiting connecting passengers off a previous flight".

dr benway

fwiw recently flew JFK MAN

seems it typically leaves late, but arrives on time, more or less, due to the padded flight time

ime, it left late due to slow boarding of a single aisle, full plane.

single aisle made a big difference imo.

cabin crew were also using business class overheads for economy as they ran out of space. and then offloading cabin bags

if it leaves on time, it arrives an hour early.

at that time it was the same plane flying back and forth MAN JFK MAN

danielflyer

Maybe it’s FlightAware. For each delayed flight it showed a late inbound aircraft from MAN along with the MAN- DUB flight history. So it seems like they might be shuttling quite a few birds back and forth. Or maybe it’s just wrong information.

ROKNA

EI209 to EI053 is below the MCT so isn't a connection...

Its not sold online either

danielflyer

I was on EI 53. Flightaware showed a late incoming aircraft from MAN on my flight to Seattle. My return was also delayed. When I checked on Flightaware, this also showed that the inbound plane was originally delayed in DUB due to a flight from MAN.

ROKNA

A330-300 operates Seattle,
A320 or ATR72 operates MAN

I don't think EI has operated a revenue 330 DUB-MAN ever

irishguy28

And I really don't think that EI rotates MAN-based aircraft to operate DUB-departing services, meaning that they'd send an A330, empty, from MAN to DUB to operate a TATL from DUB; I doubt this would even happen sporadically if a frame went tech in DUB and they had no spare a/c to call upon.

At the moment, Aer Lingus's Manchester base has 2 aircraft: the UK-registered G-EIRH (an A321 neo) which operates back and forth on the MAN-JFK-MAN route only; and the UK-registered G-EILA (an A330) which operates back and forth on the MAN-MCO-MAN route only. I don't currently have a paid FR24 subscription, but in the last 7 days there's no evidence that the Manchester-based A330 has been anywhere other than MAN or MCO.

ROKNA

SEA/SFO/LAX require a specific aircraft EI-EIN/EIM/GAJ/GCF as well, A330-300 HGW with crew rest, nothing else will do.


G-EILA just flies MAN-MCO day in day out, all daily maintenance is done in MAN

irishguy28

Given that you must have a paid account with Flightaware to be able to see that level of detail, can you please post a screen shot so that we can actually see that G-EILA was used for your delayed flight?

(But given that they seem to think the flight can be done in about ~2 hours every second iteration, I'm not sure where they get their data from, or how reliable their data is...)

Thanks!

danielflyer

I clicked to check the flight details for the inbound aircraft. Again, this could be wrong.

stifle

I don't believe that's correct; I've gone LAX-DUB on EI-DAA (Caoimhe).

BrianDromey

-DAA is a -200. The -200s were purchased for the west coast and delivered around 2000. The A330s at the time were not capable of getting to the West Coast from Ireland - indeed the very early -300s struggled to get to ORD on occasion. The likes of -CRK, -DUB, -SHN, -JFK and ironically -ORD! Some of these aircraft were initially delivered or intended for Air Inter, for domestic routes in France, they ended up with quite a different life, but their capabilities meant they were never refitted with PTVs later in their careers and that they were retired and replaced with more capable -300 models.

If memory serves me correctly -DAA was the first EI aircraft with PTV's and for a long time was the only one in the fleet.