Aer Lingus to reduce Dublin to Heathrow flights, reassess future fleet plans | Airlines

Irish carrier Aer Lingus has announced it is to reduce frequencies on its flagship Dublin to London Heathrow Airport route during the winter of 2024/25. The carrier is blaming a post-Covid decline in travel on the route and a recovery that has failed to materialize as traffic has been increasing elsewhere across its network.

The plan also comes following a wider reassessment by the company regarding its future fleet deployment plans and capacity requirements with the imminent arrival of new Airbus A321XLR aircraft in its fleet.

The review was largely driven by the passenger cap imposed at Dublin Airport  (DUB) resulting in the airport restricting its annual passenger throughput to 32 million passengers per year under existing planning laws – restrictions that Aer Lingus, Ryanair, and others have been fighting to have reviewed.

The carrier has also been battling with pilot unions for much of the past year in a dispute that has hit its finances and seen flights canceled. The dispute was finally resolved in July when the airline agreed to increase pilots’ pay by 17.75%.

The decrease in flights between the Irish capital city and its English counterpart will see an average of two return flights a day dropped from its schedules. Following the cuts, the carrier will operate between nine and ten departures a day between the airports in winter 2024/25…