Irish low-cost airliner Aer Lingus announced it would start a new twice weekly service between Dublin and Sofia for its winter 2008 schedule, along with new services to Hamburg, Newcastle, Salzburg and Agadir. In addition, the company will increase the frequency of flights to a number of other European destinations.
source: SofiaEcho
Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus has become the latest airline to hike charges in the face of surging fuel costs, raising bag check-in fees as the global oil price hit a new record today of $120.93 a barrel.
Aer Lingus announced the increase this morning in the wake of similar moves last week by British Airways, which raised fuel surcharges, and easyJet, which also increased bag check-in charges. From Thursday, online bag check-in at Aer Lingus will cost £8 while checking in luggage at the airport will cost £12 an item.
source: guardian.co.uk
Irish airline Aer Lingus is refusing to honour an online offer which mistakenly sold business class transatlantic flights for five euros (eight dollars, four pounds), a spokesman said Thursday.
The flights would normally sell for 1,775 euros one way, said Enda Corneille, Aer Lingus director of corporate affairs who apologised to the customers concerned.
“It is a genuine mistake, a fundamental mistake on our part. We rectified it as quickly as we could. We have contacted the customers and given them the opportunity to re-book,” he told RTE state radio.
source: Yahoo!
Aer Lingus has reached an agreement with a low-cost US carrier that will give the Irish airline’s passengers easier access to locations across the United States.
The agreement with Jet Blue means Aer Lingus customers will be able to book flights from Ireland to 40 US destinations from April of this year.
source: Belfast telegraph
Ryanair has begun legal action against the Financial Regulator.
The airline is challenging what it claims is a decision of the regulator not to investigate why the Government was the only party given what it called ‘inside information’ on the decision to transfer the Aer Lingus Shannon-Heathrow link to Belfast.
Ryanair was given leave to seek a judicial review of a decision of the regulator not to carry out an investigation of the matter after Aer Lingus chief executive, Dermot Mannion, revealed on radio that the Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, had been informed of the Heathrow decision before it was publicly announced.
source: RTE
Aer Lingus will make history today with the start of its services from Belfast International Airport.
Belfast Internatinal Airport is the airline’s first ever base outside the Republic, and follows the company’s controversial decision to end flights between Shannon and Heathrow and to transfer the slots to the North.
source: RTE.ie
Aer Lingus Group PLC faced a new strike threat Monday after Ireland’s largest labor union demanded that the airline abandon its new contracts for temporary employees.
The Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union said its members at Aer Lingus would walk off the job Nov. 20 and Nov. 23 if the airline didn’t restore the temporary workers’ previous pay and employment conditions.
source: IHT
Aer Lingus has announced plans to begin two new routes from Dublin and Cork next summer.
Direct flights will begin from Dublin to Ibiza and from Cork to Jersey.
The airline also plans to increase capacity on a number of its other flights, with services between Dublin and San Francisco, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Orlando operating on a year-round basis.
The airline also says it will fly from Belfast to Nice twice a week from April onwards.
source: independent.ie
Aer Lingus passengers look set to face disruption to their flights from next week as the dispute over the establishment of a new base in Belfast threatens to ground the airline.
The airline yesterday wrote to all of the airline’s 480 pilots asking them to confirm by next Monday that they would carry out duties to facilitate the opening of the new Belfast operation. Failure to do so would result in being suspended without pay, chief executive Dermot Mannion said in the letter.
The president of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa), Evan Cullan, accused the airline of “a lock-out“. Impact, the union that represents the pilots, said mass suspensions would effectively shut the airline down.
source: ireland.com
Aer Lingus said on Monday it would suspend pilots who failed to help the Irish airline recruit and train new staff at its planned new Belfast base, in a further dispute between workers and management.
Aer Lingus said in August it would transfer valuable Heathrow slots from Shannon to a new Belfast base in Northern Ireland.
The move has triggered strike threats by Aer Lingus pilots who fear staff in Belfast will be employed on lower pay than those in the Republic of Ireland.
source: iii.co.uk