Aer Lingus - Oneworld
 

It would appear that Aer Lingus are going to stay in the Oneworld Alliance. Now that three of the key management team of Aer Lingus are leaving, I wonder if they will re-align any of their products (business class back in short ahul before it's gone?)?

Although Aer Lingus is now doing well, I reckon that the staff would be happy to see business class back in short haul, and a dropping of the low fares tag - Ireland is such a small country that everyone knows how much it costs to fly with Aer Lingus and Ryanair! Why can't Aer Lingus do what BA did and just drop the fares while maintaining a similiar level of service - would that not work? (I know the European service is not (or hasn't been) doing great with BA - I wonder how much they've improved revenue on short-haul servies recently?)...

Amazing to me - the management teram makes a net earner out of EI, so the governmental owners send them packing! With behaviour like that, nothing would suprise me... maybe an alliance with Aeroflot? Oh, someone else is going to do that... :D

I think the manamgement felt forced out as there was complete inaction in the privatisation of the airline. The Government elections are next year, and they decided not to put Aer Lingus up for sale before the elections, so the management obviously felt they could do no more, and decided to move on.

If you felt your company was going nowhere, would you leave?

According to the Aviance staff at Dublin Airport, Aer Lingus have left the Oneworld Alliance. I am not sure that this is the case, but three things have changed here at Dublin.

Firstly, ground handling seems to be handled by Aviance now, it used to be Aer Lingus...

Secondly, the Gold Circle lounge in Dublin Airport is no longer used by BA, it's now the beautiful Anna Livia Lounge, which is nearer the departure gates... It's not that beautiful, it's smaller than the Gold Circle Lounge, but appears to have much the same facilities (including free wifi access)...

Lastly, departures are now from Pier B, instead of Pier A.

Anybody know if there has been a major change as far as Aer Lingus and Oneworld are concerned?

Nothing that I can see anywhere on the web - news sites, OneWorld, Aer Lingus all confirm that it is still part of the alliance.

Aviance staff getting their wires crossed. I suspect myself that leaving Oneworld was on the cards with the old management team but unlikely at the moment or for the immediate future. However there are funny things afoot (i.e. American Airlines introducing a competing service to ORD and BOS from next summer).

Aer Lingus no longer do third party ground handling, for anyone, period. It probably didn't go down well with BA and IB (against the 'spirit' of Oneworld if not the letter of the law) but was since in their business interests hence Aviance getting the contract.

Along those lines third party lounge access was no longer an option (for business class BA pax) in the Gold circle lounge however you CAN still use it as a BA Gold or Silver and traveling econ on any Oneworld carrier. Imho opinion though the Anna Livia lounge although smaller is usually much more quite and closer to everything.

Not sure why change of Pier but it's welcome especially during the winter months! :D

AA has had very high loads ORD-LHR-DUB -- lots of people avoiding the EI ORD-DUB service for whatever reason. The timing of the AA flight also makes it more convenient and more a supplement than a competitor to EI. It might pick off some BD traffic as well. At first I thought it was an attack on EI but it looks like the market has plenty of traffic and it is AA selecting a route based on probable yield. The BOS-SNN route is also under-served, I've been told, which seems surprising but AA has been very good at evaluating routes. The very high disposable incomes currently in Ireland (maybe the richest country in Europe today per capita!) has led to huge increase in travel from Ireland as well as the business flying that goes with a booming economy. Who would have guessed that Ireland would evolve this way in the past decade? A massive beneficiary from joining the EU.

Hmm I'm not so sure. It's well known that IB were none too pleased at what they felt was a grab of their traffic through EIs rapid expansion of routes into Spain so I can't help feeling AA is doing the same thing on EI (whats good for the gander and all that ;) ) From what I'm told there's a lot of conflict within Oneworld itself about EIs continued membership. On one hand there is very little reciprocal benefit to the other members having EI in rather than out but on the other hand what they are doing is making them by far and away the most profitable carrier in the group with yields approaching the genuine LCCs. Kind of hard to kick someone out for being succesful.

You're probably not wrong about disposable incomes. Mind you it's a credit-fueled spending spree rather than anything else and I'm convinced the young Irish are living through a 'good times will never end' euphoria similar to the UK in the 80s. I'd also argue that the adage that 'Dublin is closer to Boston than to Berlin' probably accounts for more of our success than anything else but thats a conversation well outside the remit of flyertalk! :D

From my limited understanding of Irish affairs, the management left because they wanted the airline to be sold to THEM.
It appears that EI management weren't prevented from running the airline with a market focus...they, as managers, shouldn't have been too concerned about who owns the company as long as they were free to manage a profit-seeking organisation.