Aer Lingus is planning to launch flights between the United States and Cork. The airline’s move is being seen by travel experts as an attempt to directly compete with Norwegian, which also expects to introduce flights services on the same route this summer.
Willie Walsh, Chief Executive of Aer Lingus, said, “We are planning to buy a new single-aisle aircraft which would be of great help to conduct flight operations to the east coast of the United States from Cork. The new transatlantic service from Cork is a great opportunity for Aer Lingus and acquiring a smaller-gauge aircraft would also be beneficial economically.”
Travel experts said that this additional service is likely to be launched after three years and would prove to be a major transformational development for Cork. The new service may also be troublesome for Shannon if more customers are lured away and choose to abandon west coast airport in favor of Cork.
Media reports said that Aer Lingus is planning to purchase Airbus A321LR aircrafts with a total seating capacity of 206 passengers. The aircraft will be configured in two classes – 16 seats in business class and 190 seats in economy class. The first delivery of the aircraft is scheduled in 2019. Norwegian is also considering using smaller aircrafts to conduct flights between the United States and Cork.
Aer Lingus has indicated that it wants to provide connectivity to more secondary destinations in the U.S. with the help of the new Airbus aircraft. The airline has already leased a Boeing 757 aircraft configured with 177 seats for conducting some flights services between the United States and Ireland.
According to the reports, the plans of Aer Lingus have suffered a minor setback as a hearing by the U.S. Department of Transportation has been pushed back by 10 days to May 18, 2016 after Norwegian objected to the plans to launch flights to Boston from Cork during the coming summer months.
PASSPORT & VISA PROCESSING