The takeover of Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus by IAG (International Airlines Group) that also owns British Airways, Iberia and Vueling is now a done deal.
The takeover closed on Wednesday and the IAG received 98.05% acceptance from Aer Lingus shareholders.
You can read more about this development on Irish Times website here of which below is an excerpt:
Aer Lingus shares are expected to be delisted from the Dublin and London stock exchanges on September 17 – almost nine years to the day since the airline’s flotation.
Last month, Mr Walsh welcomed Aer Lingus to IAG, saying the airline would benefit from new routes that would in turn benefit customers as well as the Irish economy and tourism.
Mr Walsh plans to detail his strategy for Aer Lingus in November. He wants to use the carrier to expand IAG’s transatlantic business via Dublin. A recent research report by Goodbody Stockbrokers noted that the IAG move is likely to boost total traffic at Aer Lingus from 9.8 million passengers last year to 15 million by 2020.
Goodbody analysts predict that Aer Lingus will need an additional seven A320 short-haul aircraft between 2017 and 2020 to cope with growth on that network. However, Aer Lingus long-haul services are expected to account for 59pc of total revenues at the airline by 2020, compared to 38pc last year.
Conclusion
Aer Lingus used to be part of Oneworld before going the LCC route and withdrawing from it. Now that all the other airlines have downgraded their services in both sides of the Atlantic there is very little difference if any on the services provided.
I would expect that Aer Lingus would join the Transatlantic Joint Venture with American Airlines, British Airways, Iberia, Finnair and OpenSkies in due course. Wouldn’t surprise me if the airline would find its way back to the Oneworld alliance.
IAG owned airlines use Avios as their loyalty program currency that you can transfer between programs. Let’s hope that Aer Lingus implements this as well.
