Aer Lingus and bmi scrap over Heathrow route
23.09.08
Aer Lingus and bmi are involved in a verbal scrap over their battle for market share on the Belfast to Heathrow route, the Belfast Telegraph reports. Last week Aer Lingus highlighted Civil Aviation Authority data that showed it had a 41.75% share of the traffic in August — despite having just 30% of the capacity.
However Brenda Morgan, sales manager for bmi in Northern Ireland, hit back, accusing Aer Lingus of ‘distorting the market’ by giving away seats free. She told the newspaper that the Irish airline had included Belfast in its free seats offer, which started on August 1, with passengers being required to pay just the taxes and charges.
Ms Morgan said: ‘If you give away seats for free, then clearly any airline will be able to fill its seats. This is a case of Aer Lingus buying market share. In fact, if you look at the first 7 months of this year, Aer Lingus’ share of the Belfast to London market works out at just 31%.'
‘At bmi we are maintaining our current timetable of 8 flights a day, giving passengers a wide choice of departure times, while Aer Lingus is proposing to reduce its capacity, cutting back from 4 flights to 3 a day this winter on its Heathrow service.’
Add to: del.icio.us | Digg it | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
To book airport hotel belfast or airport car parking belfast at the lowest price click on these links to belfast airport car parking and belfast airport hotel price comparison pages.
