Eirjet

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Eirjet

IATA Unknown	ICAO EIR	Callsign EIRJET
Founded		2004
Hubs		Shannon Airport, Dublin Airport and Cork International Airport
Fleet size		4
Destinations		Chartered
Parent company		Eirjet Ltd
Headquarters		Shannon, Ireland
Key people		Bernard Healy (Founder)
Website: http://www.eirjet.com

Eirjet was a charter airline based at Shannon International Airport in Ireland. They operated charter services to the Mediterranean. Its main bases were Dublin International Airport, Shannon International Airport and Cork International Airport.

1 History
2 Fleet
3 Incidents and accidents
4 Demise of Eirjet
5 External links

[edit] History

The airline was established in 2004 and started operations on 23 December 2004 with an inaugural flight to Agadir with an Airbus A320. Another 2 aircraft were added in summer 2005 to add flights from Cork and Shannon. One of them painted in Air Jamaica colours, its former operator. The company founders include former Skynet Airlines personnel and Bernard Healy, who owns Idray, a Dublin company controlling the operations of Omni Tours, Omni Travel, Malaga Express and Faro Express (ref: Airways, March 2005).

Eirjet made an application to the United States Department of Transportation to permit the airline to perform ad hoc charters between Ireland and the US, within the US and from the US to third countries.

The airline had an unusual philosophy of leasing aircraft. For example, on February 18, 2006, the airline wet leased all three Airbus aircraft to Ryanair and hired in three aircraft from airlines including Transavia, Flyjet, and Eagle Aviation to cover their own charter program.

As of October 18, 2006 the airline has suspended all operations. The firm said that it is continuing to try to negotiate finance on order to secure its future.

As of the end of October, the airline had ceased trading. ^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Fleet

The Eirjet fleet consisted of the following aircraft:

4 Airbus A320-200 EI-DIJ (ex-Monarch Airlines) and EI-DKF (ex-Air Jamaica)

In March 2006, Eirjet fleet average age was 9.6 years old.

The airline acquired another Airbus A320 for this summer 2006. EI-DOZ was delivered to the company on Friday, July 21st 2006. Two of Eirjets aircraft have been leased to Mandala Airlines because of Eirjet's financial difficulties.

[edit] Incidents and accidents

On March 29, 2006 an Eirjet aircraft wet leased to Ryanair accidentally landed at British military airstrip at Ballykelly instead of City of Derry Airport which is 8km away.[1]

[edit] Demise of Eirjet

On October 18, 2006 the airline announced that due to financial diffuculties they would cease operations. All aircraft have now left the fleet with the exception of EI-DOZ which is still parked at Shannon. ^{[citation needed]}