MeltingAlf

I remember advocating with you on this board for EI's purchase by IAG then; that was more than a quarter of my life ago

Would definitely be great to have EI back in oneworld, tbh the lack of useful FFP status earning (unfortunately AerClub isn't that useful to me) is making me use BA or FR more when it comes to Irish flights.

DELLAS

Its come full circle I was top tier GC then lost my benefits when they left and started all the dot com livery nonsense ! I then leaned to Bmi and Star Alliance . With Aer Lingus being OW the balance may shift again although I will aim to keep both as would miss A3/TK/LX etc ..

irishguy28

KLM restarted service to DUB in October 2016 after a break of 50 years; service to ORK started in the summer of 2020 (pushed back from the planned March 2020 start by Covid; I had a seat on the planned inaugural flight, but didn't end up taking that flight until the summer of 2021!!!); as a result, pretty much all of my flights back to Ireland are now on KLM where I now comfortably requalify for Platinum each year as a result; that means my patronage of Aer Lingus has drastically tailed off over the last few years (the one notable exception, though, is making Avios redemptons on EI which can be exceptionally great value, particularly when planned with less notice than I usually plan my travel). And my BA status finally degraded all the way from Gold to Blue just this month (that sad day should have happened in 2020, but the pandemic kept me at Rust for an extra 3 years!).

So to a large extent, I've already moved on from oneworld (meaning BAEC) and Aer Lingus...IAG's dithering being the start, but KLM starting up both DUB and ORK being the final nail in that coffin...but it would still be great to be able to combine EI flights and whatever other random oneworld flights I may end up taking in a single account, whether that ends up being BAEC or AerClub.

Kgmm77

I find myself less enthused by the prospect of this than I was in the past. I’ve held One World status with BA for most of the last 25 years, with a big chunk of BMI *G in the middle. A combination of stopping weekly commuting and the broader range of airlines serving DUB mean I find frequent flyer benefits much less useful. Add to the fact that EI seem to be heading down the BA route of operational fragility (thanks IAG), I certainly won’t be changing my “best of breed” approach to selecting a carrier for a given route.

Mordac

I'd strongly consider returning to flying with OW if this happened, as EI are just so convenient for flying from BHX.

stifle

T3 does not have facilities for domestic/common travel area flights so that's a non-starter. T5 has only 2 stands suitable for ROI arrivals; that could be extended with some minor work otherwise it would be bussing on arrival.

MeltingAlf

I'd reckon it's quite a similar situation on this side of the Irish Sea - KLM having so much more connections to the UK mainland than BA has made it quite an attractive proposition if one doesn't live in London or along the M4. But AMS being a mess since after Covid has made me actively avoid it now (I'd rather fly into EIN or RTM and make good use of my OV-chipkaart or just route via other hubs), and EI as an additional alliance-affiliated option would definitely be nice

Harper50505

Similar story and now an almost dedicated *A flyer with a few exceptions on AY for HEL. I don't think I would return to EI however. I travel far more east than west and the EI network is far too limited which means a lot of LHR transits and a terminal change. For longer distances I find TK services from DUB fine. My one wish is A3 would go daily meaning day time rather than the current situation of some days and quite a lot of night time services.

AirbusA350

Is this rumour an actual credible one? They’ve not even fully joined the Transatlantic JV they got approved for nearly 3 years ago!!

FlightDetective

I don't think so, it's only really appeared in one tweet on Twitter as far as I can see.

There have been no other sources whatsoever that I've found.

etiene

AMS is nowhere near the catastophe it was last summer. Schiphol seems to have managed to hire enough security people that I haven't seen a queue there in many months, KMar are still a bit short though so there can be border queues at times. I've not seen anything that would be longer than 20-30 minutes I reckon - though I don't have first hand experience due to Privium. Of course the summer holidays could expose them again, but I'm not expecting it to cause more issues than the average airport.

Always happy for another airline to join oneworld, but if joining the AJV means that BA award TPs on EI then the alliance membership would probably make very little difference to us.

AirbusA350

Ah ok, then what was the “another platform” and post being removed thing you mentioned above which led you to believe it was legit?

FlightDetective

It was posted on another forum. On that forum, someone wrote text which looked like it was part of a oneworld alliance press release (though I was forensically looking at and one word looked strange), saying they had found it "on another platform". I queried it saying did they have a link or to say what the other platform was. I assumed it was perhaps some kind of airline system or something.

Anyway, the post was deleted shortly after it was posted. I found that really odd and that quick reaction deleting the post by forum moderators led me to believe that perhaps someone had released something that was under embargo. A couple of days later, one of the forum moderators chimed in to say that someone had reported the post and they just happened to be really on the ball getting rid of it. So nothing to see here really!

tangey

This is the sole basis of the "rumour" ?, was it a known entity that might be in a position to have inside info, or just some random internet person ?

FlightDetective

Well, the Tweet is by SPD Travels on Twitter - SPD_travels

However, it was on another forum online where someone posted what was in essence two or three sentences saying that Aer Lingus was joining the oneworld alliance, sponsored by British Airways and American Airlines, with an expected join date of Q2 2025. I don't know who that person was, I wish I'd screenshotted it now.

It made sense though, because alliance membership generally takes 18 months, so it worked from a date perspective. Also, the sponsoring airlines - usually there is just one, but there are sometimes two and it's usually the ones geographically closest (I think AA sponsored Alaska, Qatar sponsoring Oman Air etc).

Perhaps the person who posted the tweet saw this very thread, or perhaps saw the original post on the other forum and then tweeted. Either way, that's really all I know of personally about this. I've looked around and haven't seen it anywhere else... (yet?)