Aer Lingus

In the past month, we've seen Aer Lingus confirm that it's adding more flights to Denver and Minneapolis/St Paul next year and that it will launch a new route to Nashville from April 2025. Now we have confirmation that the Irish flag carrier will add yet another US destination to its route map in 2025 - Indianapolis.

In the past couple of years, Aer Lingus has been making a concerted effort to boost its transatlantic presence with new routes to the US, more flights to the US, and closer ties to its biggest US airline partner, and now its continuing that trend with the announcement that from April 2025, Nashville will appear on its route map.

A lot of the route expansion that we have been writing about in the past few weeks seems to have mostly centered outside of the United States (although we did write about British Airways adding more flight to the US in 2025), so it's good to be able to report that two US cities will be seeing more service from Aer Lingus in summer 2025.

Aer Lingus ordered the Airbus A321neo Long Range aircraft specifically to give it an efficient aircraft on which to operate transatlantic routes that don't warrant the use of a wide-body aircraft. Fortunately, Aer Lingus also employs its A321neo aircraft on select short haul routes (usually while they're in between transatlantic trips to maximise their air time), so it was on a flight between London Heathrow and Dublin that I got my first chance to look inside the newest aircraft type in the Aer Lingus fleet.

This week, we've had some good news from Aer Lingus as we're told that three new routes will launch this coming winter. All three routes are short-haul routes, all three will start in Dublin, and all three are to destinations that should be popular with people connecting from transatlantic flights.

Historically, Aer Lingus has operated out of Terminal 5 at Chicago O'Hare but as of 24 January, the airline has moved out of the international terminal and is now sharing a terminal with American Airlines.

Aer Lingus has confirmed that its Dublin - Harford (CT) route will be returning next year following its suspension at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. News of the returning route is the second US announcement that Aer Lingus has made recently following the news that Cleveland will be added to the airline's network next summer.

If you sat me down and asked me to name as many transatlantic routes as I can (both existing and potential), I'm not sure that the Dublin to Cleveland route would appear in my first thousand guesses. That, however, is exactly the route that Aer Lingus has now announced that it plans to fly.

In the past few months, I've written about Aer Lingus more than at any other point in the short life of this site but somehow, somewhere down the line, I appear to have missed the announcement that from tomorrow, Aer Lingus is heading back to the West Coast.

Aer Lingus has announced that it plans to restart non-stop flights between Dublin and Miami later this year and as long as this plan isn't upended by an unexpected turn of events courtesy of the coronavirus, this should be good news for fans of Avios who have been burned by the latest British Airways devaluation. 

In anticipation of the Biden administration finally getting around to opening up travel to the United States the UK, Ireland, and the Schengen area (take your time Joe, no hurry), Aer Lingus has announced that it will be restarting two of its transatlantic routes to the US in the coming weeks.

We've known for some time that Aer Lingus has been planning to launch a number of new non-stop transatlantic routes from Manchester in the UK with New York and Boston among the destinations being targeted but details have been thin on the ground. Now, however, Aer Lingus has finally unveiled its plans and they're not entirely free from surprises.

Aer Lingus has been having a few issues with the delivery of its new Airbus A321LR aircraft which has seen the airline push back the start of its transatlantic services with the aircraft on at least two occasions. Just recently, however, Aer Lingus has brought forward the launch of A321LR transatlantic service to 2 August and now the airline has finally scheduled its first short-haul route with the new aircraft.

Aer Lingus will be taking delivery of 14 Airbus A321LR aircraft in total and 4 of these aircraft are supposed to be delivered this year. The Irish flag carrier was expected to be the first airline to offer transatlantic A321LR service with the new aircraft operating between Dublin - and Hartford from 1 July but a series of aircraft delays have seen Aer Lingus have to push back A321LR service on at least two occasions.

From 1 September 2019 Aer Lingus is introducing 'AerSpace' Business Class to its short-haul aircraft on numerous intra-Europe routes and, based on the description of the product we can expect, it looks as if this may be a further (if minor) alignment of Aer Lingus with a fellow IAG airline - British Airways.

We've known for a few months that the first transatlantic routes to be served by the Aer Lingus A321LR will be Minneapolis/St Paul, Hartford and Montreal but, up until now, we've only had a rough idea of when these routes will see the new aircraft. Now we have the first route confirmed.

Aer Lingus is becoming an increasingly more important transatlantic carrier as it expands its routes, updates its aircraft & cabins and eventually joins the oneworld alliance. The airline recently announced a big rebranding which will see its aircraft in a new livery and its crews in new uniforms but the more interesting recent development (for passengers) was the announcement that Aer Lingus would offer lie-flat Business Class seats on select short-haul routes.

There have been a few leaks across the internet recently but now Aer Lingus has officially revealed the results of its rebranding including a new livery for its aircraft. The rebranding will continue later in the year when new uniforms are unveiled.

The Irish Times has reported that as a result of the new aircraft Aer Lingus will be receiving next year the airline will offer a Business Class cabin on a few of its short-haul routes to Europe...but there's a twist.