Aer Lingus’ Atlantic adventure tests the virtual airline concept

In early Jul-2013, Aer Lingus CEO Christoph Mueller declared that the carrier was "back to growth mode" (Financial Times, 4-Jul-2013), driven by Atlantic expansion. After 13% capacity growth on the Atlantic in 2013, Aer Lingus is planning a remarkable 24% growth in 2014. An important element of this growth involves attracting transfer traffic originating in the UK regions away from London Heathrow, building on Dublin's geographic position and growing North American connectivity.

There are to be new routes from Dublin to San Francisco and Toronto and increased frequencies from Shannon to New York and Boston. A significant part of the new capacity will be operated under wet-lease by ASL Aviation Group. An important proportion of Aer Lingus' regional feed from the UK into Dublin is also operated by a third party (Aer Arann) and Aer Lingus itself operates short-haul flights for Virgin Atlantic.

With these moves Aer Lingus appears to be testing and developing the concept of a virtual airline.