Aer Lingus denies plans to resume US west coast flights
Media reports suggested that the airline — which pulled its west coast routes towards the end of 2009 in a bid to arrest mounting losses — was looking to resume flying to California next year and had entered talks with four airports, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland and San Jose, regarding possibly restarting services.
However, the airline yesterday said that it had analysed the potential of such routes but had come to the conclusion that they would probably generate “significant losses”.
Dublin Chamber of Commerce was one of the loudest voices supporting a resumption of Aer Lingus’ California services and expressed its disappointment that the routes will not be returning in 2012.
“Such a route would have been extremely valuable to the continued development of our strong economic links with Silicon Valley and other west coast hubs of US companies with European headquarters here in Ireland,” its chief executive, Gina Quin, said yesterday.
“Silicon Valley companies employ thousands of workers throughout Ireland. Employment alone has grown by 6% in this area in 2010 and there is still the promise of more to come.
“We believe that the lack of routes between Dublin Airport and the west coast is a major obstacle for Irish companies in search of venture capital and for attracting multinationals from the west coast technology sector,” Ms Quin said.
“We believe this route can and will be good business for an airline and Ireland,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Irish Aviation Authority has said it controlled an average of 1,648 flights in Irish airspace on a daily basis last month — up by 0.4% on a year-on-year basis.
En-route traffic in Irish airspace (flights which don’t land in Ireland) was up by 2%; although commercial terminal traffic for Shannon, Dublin and Cork airports dropped by 0.8% compared to the same month last year.
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