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Airline vows continued Atlantic service

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

An Aer Lingus spokesman said Tuesday that the carrier was planning to “run as full an operation as possible” on the Atlantic routes despite the work stoppage.
Brian Murphy, vice president for sales and marketing North America, said that services would be mostly maintained with a combination of Aer Lingus planes and aircraft leased by the company.
To meet the first strike deadline of midnight Wednesday, Irish time (7 p.m. on the U.S. Coast), Murphy said that flights to Ireland from Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore/Washington, D.C., as well as New York and Boston, would be leaving earlier than usual on Wednesday.
“There will be minor disruptions as a result of moving these flights forward to get them out by 7 p.m. eastern time,” Murphy said. “Passengers are being notified of the time changes.”
On Thursday and Monday, the actual days of the strike action, Murphy said that passengers would be flown to Ireland on aircraft chartered from companies that Aer Lingus deals with in such circumstances.
“There will be aircraft,” Murphy said.
However, Thursday could see the cancellation of flights from Ireland into Los Angeles and Baltimore/D.C. because of a question mark over availability of “lease-in” aircraft.
The situation with regard to those two westbound services was “fluid,” Murphy said.
However, he indicated that Aer Lingus was working to ensure that leased aircraft would be available for flights to Ireland out of those two airports.
In order to have Aer Lingus aircraft available for services to Ireland on Friday and Tuesday of next week, planes will be flown to the U.S. on Thursday and Monday.
These aircraft would only have flight crew aboard, Murphy said.

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