The Irish Times is reporting — anew — that Aer Lingus has its sights set on a Dublin-to-Pittsburgh direct flight.
Per the unsourced story that ran this month, the Irish newspaper says that while Aer Lingus has not commented on likely new routes for next year, Pittsburgh is “a possible destination for 2026, it is understood.”
Analysts say Aer Lingus’ generally strong recent financial showing has put the airline into a continuing expansion mode. It added flights to Nashville and Indianapolis this year.
But U.S. taxpayers and/or public airport authorities have been paying a steep premium to land the Irish carrier.
As this scrivener shared with you this past spring, the Indiana Business Journal reported that Aer Lingus is receiving an incentive package of at least $17 million dollars from the likes of the Indianapolis Airport Authority, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. (IEDC) and the City of Indianapolis.
“The IEDC will provide $17 million in annual support, while the airport, over a two-year period, will provide about $2 million a year in credits and advertising, [Airport Authority Executive Director Mario] Rodriguez said.
“The city’s stake in the contract was not immediately available,” the Business Journal reported.
By comparison, Nashville got off easy, The Tennessean newspaper reported – “Aer Lingus will receive up to $2.75 million in incentives from the airport, plus $1.5 million in marketing funds.”
But, two years ago, Cleveland was raked over the corporate wealthfare coals – Aer Lingus is receiving nearly $12 million over three years. There’s talk of extending the time frame of the deal but with no additional money.
The Allegheny County Airport Authority previously confirmed it has been in negotiations with Aer Lingus but has been mum on the details. The Irish carrier will have special flights from Pittsburgh to Dublin next month to service fans attending the Pittsburgh Steelers-Minnesota Vikings game.
As I asked back in February:
“So, why are subsidies — either outright grants or ‘incentives’ that, in reality, backstop, if not incentivize, nonperformance – even on the table?”
And it’s an even more apropos question given observers’ characterization of Aer Lingus’ finances as being “strong.”
For as Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute, reminded that same month (in Policy Brief Vol. 25, No. 7):
“(S)ubsidies beget subsidies … they create unfair competition for other carriers … they do not produce the economic benefits they are touted to do,” the Ph.D. economist reminds. “Reliance on subsidies to generate passenger growth signals a recognition of a lack of economic and population gains.”
And as yours truly also reminded back then:
“Massive, multimillion-dollar subsidies to Aer Lingus to cement a PIT landing deal could prove to be the equally massive market-perverting cluster-cluck of all cluster-clucks, considering Aer Lingus and the already subsidized British Airways (BA) at PIT share the same parent company, the Spanish-registered International Airlines Group (IAG).
“If the Aer Lingus deal is richer than the BA deal, you can bet the latter, another money-gobbling scion of the same mother, will demand that it be bribed in equal or higher measure,” I noted at the time.
Stay tuned. We would not be surprised at all to see the announcement of any Aer Lingus “deal,” if it is to come, to coincide with the Steelers’ game in Dublin on Sept. 28.
But what we are curious to see is the size of the fleecing, the origins and mix of any offered subsidies and how Airport Authority officials choose to yet again defend the indefensible.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitue.org).
