My girlfriend lives in Brussels and she told me she heard this story on the news. I am puzzled as Aer Arann hasn't mentioned it on their website even though they announced a new route from Liverpool to Galway today. There is nothing posted on Bierset's site either.
It's indeed surprising.
Maybe they are preparing a complete refurbishment of the website and wait for it to place the announcment on a very visible way: it's not just like a new destination: because they base two aircrafts, they plan surely more than has been said until now.
Reading the proposed flight schedules, one can see that, once the BHX route will open, BOTH planes will leave LGG at 0700 in the morning to LTN and BHX and both will fly back. One of them is due to fly LRT but nothing is told about the second!!!!!!: we can not reasonabily think that such a well organized company will keep the plane on the apron until the evening flights!
So, I have a very big feeling that they are finalizing some agreements with ANOTHER destination and that the complete announcment will take place at that moment.
Or does somebody know what they are planning with the second plane that flies back from UK in themorning?
visited the website of aer arann a few seconds ago:
new is : at the bottom of the page, under "destinations", appears the word Liege (absent yesterday). (click on it: still no info)
the changes are VERY slow!!!
an-148 wrote:visited the website of aer arann a few seconds ago:
new is : at the bottom of the page, under "destinations", appears the word Liege (absent yesterday). (click on it: still no info)
the changes are VERY slow!!!
Yesterday afternoon a wrote an e-mail to the Irish carrier and asked for further details on the Liege-operations.
As soon as I get an official answer, I will keep you updated!
The destination Liege again disappeared from destinations list!
They are working on the web site!
Maybe they are about to propose multi-lingual webpage, maybe they wait final contract with another platform to officialize the whole story:
the second plane coming back from UK in the morning has to fly SOMEWHERE during the day!
Let's guess:
I would suggest Prague as a first choice!
Could be exciting to expect the official release!
Last thursday (9 feb 2006), at the "Salon des Vacances" of Brussels, I asked a representative of Aer Arann in Belgium and one of Liège Airport, and both told me they didn't yet know the timetable nor the fares of the Aer Arann flights to and from Liège...
Now, I begin to be totally sure they are finalizing the last agreements about this "missing" or "exceeding" (depends how you consider) 8 hours in the schedule!
I hope it will be a good surprise.
Scanario "a la Hitchkock" !!!!!!!!!!!
Just a quick media analysis:
1/. aer arann did not post liège, then mentions it 'blank', no reference on its web site
2/. no aer arann rep was present during the press conference
3/. theoretical schedule rather confusing and not reflecting aer arann's operating modes
4/. no update available at Liège airport
5/. no multilingual service available at aer arann on their website
6/. aer arann reservation not aware of these new flights
That all sounds quite confusing to me. A premature announcement by a prominent walloon politician who need some positive PR?
@ EG
On Feb 10, at 4h26' pm, what I related was the absolute truth!
Now it's up to you to believe it or not!
That doesn't mean that the scenario is still confusing!
I'm also VERY curious to see what will show up in a few days!
I was reading an article in Regionalhub about Aer Arann about their new schedules for summer 2006. And believe it or not but LGG no word of it, no single clue about flights from LGG to destinations like Luton, etc.
@an-148
No question, you are right. This it is just a very weird situation. Also found an article in the irish press about it, but as for the link you posted they all relate information from that same press conference in Liege earlier this month. At this stage, Aer Arann still does not offer bookings on any of these segments either thru the web or thru their call center - where the flights are actually not confirmed, I just called over there. Don't even think about a multilingual service, they dont have (albeit they fly to Lorient) Definitely badly managed from a PR standpoint, and very strange timing as first flight is scheduled for early April. PMakes little sense, especially Aer Arann for sure knows they have to build up their brand name awarness in the area. A press conference would have been a good moment to show up. Anyway, let's see and keeep on posting, this is really interesting.
They announced Cork-Angers, Cork-Jersey, and Manchester-Angers yesterday. Apparently, they are looking at 9 new routes for Summer 2006 and with Galway-Liverpool and Dublin-Inverness, that leaves 4 to come.
Interestingly, they have decided to drop Cork-Birmingham now that they are in competition with both Aer Lingus and bmibaby on the route. Possibly that means that they have slots available at Birmingham that they want to retain, which could explain the choice of Birmingham as a destination from LGG.
the revival of turboprop and the expansion of companies using them has partially to do with increase of fuel costs, that allows these planes to be more and more competitive (in addition to good management and anticipation on the future, naturally!).
One has only to have a look to the statistics of orders for ATR and Dash8 planes.
A "second low-cost revolution" is on the way!
The success of aer arann is not a single one, there are more examples!