TCX69

From Sunday October 30, British Airways will operate a wet lease service for Aer Lingus to support their UK domestic operations. The wet lease will operate for approximately 6 months, and there will be 3 round trips, totalling 6 flights a day.

The flights will be sold to customers with an Aer Lingus (EI) flight number, but for all internal purposes BA flight numbers will be used:

EI930/BA8590 – BHD/LHR
EI931/BA8591 – LHR/BHD
EI934/BA8592 – BHD/LHR
EI935/BA8593 – LHR/BHD
EI936/BA8594 – BHD/LHR
EI937/BA8595 – LHR/BHD

These flights will operate to and from Terminal 2 at London Heathrow, on an Airbus A320.

The Aer Lingus service will be offered. This is a single class, buy on board service, called ‘Bia’.

Row one will be sold as ‘Aer Space’ with added benefits such as middle seat free, guaranteed overhead locker space and a complimentary snack and drink item.

Boutique items such as chocolates and perfumes will also be available, on a time permitting basis.

Aer Lingus customers will have been made aware of this arrangement in advance.

JD1905

I was hoping that BA would fully take over the services operated by EI as they offer some more options when using my companion voucher - No luck on this occasion - but good to see that the route will continue to operate.

sammyg901

From a logistical point of view it's surprising they'll carry Aer Lingus BOB - the aircraft night stops in Belfast so BA will want to swap it out in London at least some days + they've presumably got to issue training on Aer Lingus BOB procedures to BA crew. Would just be easier to carry BA BOB you'd think!

There will be quite a few passengers on a BA code on an EI flight operated by BA slightly confused why they're not getting a free water + snack I expect!

AirbusA350

No formal re-training for crew, they’ll be issued a internal documentation on how to use the POS system and the plane will be stocked with EI product at Belfast, except for the very first day of operations where they’re positioning to BHD.

Not dissimilar to how AY and IB handled BA’s Speedbird Café proposition and shouldn’t be an issue. In fact I’d not hesitate in saying EI’s POS systems probably work better/smoother than BA’s!

a380fan

I am curious, and maybe someone has some insights, into why this is necessary. In that I perfectly understand that this is a consequence of brexit, and EU airlines losing their rights to operate UK domestic sectors. However what I am curious about is why didn't Aer Lingus simply transfer this aircraft to their UK operation? Apparently they are losing the aircraft ( temporarily at least ) anyway, so it cannot be for capacity/utilisation reasons. Also aircraft running on the UK operation could run any sectors either domestically within the UK, or say LHR to DUB.

Maybe I am missing something, so happy to be educated!

Airprox

Their UK operation is simply a company name so far, it doesn't have an Air Operator Certificate yet to run it's own UK registered aircraft.

JD1905

Could they not have registered the Aircraft with Aer Lingus Regional?

sammyg901

They'd realisically have to transfer two aircraft in case one went tech or needs maintainence & they'd need to have enough EI UK crew to run the operation in isolation (whereas currently it can all be covered from Dublin as required). For 3 flights a day this likely just isn't worth it.

sammyg901

I don't think this is correct. They have G- reg A321s and A330s out of Manchester. But these aren't useful for a Belfast-London A320 operation!

a380fan

I don't think that's true, according to wikipedia they got their AOC in July 2021. They certainly already have aircraft ( One A321LR and a A330 ), and are actively running flights to the USA. Which I assume would also not be possible, to have EU aircraft flying from the UK to the US. Although potentially the openskies agreement has been extended.

I agree, it would require transferring another aircraft ( or a couple of aircraft if you wanted to also utilise these on London -> Dublin etc ).

I would guess not, the regional company is probably contracted with limitations on the number of seats/size of aircraft they can offer. To ensure that this isn't used to move mainline crew into a regional company ( which generally offer lower pay etc ). The regional company would also likely need to do a bunch of work to be able to fly a new type. While at least Aer Lingus UK is already operating A320 series ( in the form of the A321LR ).
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sammyg901

yes I was just thinking that. They could transfer multiple aircraft and operate these on DUB-UK routes. That way if they've got a shortfall for some reason they could have EI- birds operate those instead and always prioritise the BHD flights

But really you'd just think the most simple option is for BA to operate them all as BA flights!

a380fan

The current Aer Lingus UK operation already has that issue for their US flights, so maybe acceptable?

Crewing could be difficult indeed, although could perhaps be solved. Crew overnights in say LHR, operates a LHR -> DUB in the morning. New crew takes over, and then the plane operates DUB -> LHR, LHR -> BHD etc etc. However this is a bigger operational headache. Or maybe the reason for the wet leasing is just temporary until this is figured out.

Perhaps your last point is the reason, it's not a route that's big enough to worry about Just let BA do it, and be done with it.

ed_flyer

Why don’t BA just run more BA flights? What’s the need for an Aer Lingus service? It’s all AIG anyway. Is it something to do with Aer Lingus keeping LHR slots?

Airprox

So they do have a UK AOC itseems, but they do not have rights to run domestic services according to the press when they originally said they would be cancelling the route (before this BA arrangement was setup)

a380fan

Well Aer Lingus proper does not have those rights, and that is the company currently running those services. But this is hence my curiosity, as potentially they could have run it under Aer Lingus UK. Similar to how RyanAir has RyanAir UK to run UK domestic sectors, and EasyJet has EU operations for running within the EU.

But as was mentioned above, maybe it's just not that valuable a route to make the effort worth while.