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The delivery of Aer Lingus’ first Airbus A321LR is just a few months away and will represent a major step forward for the Dublin based airline.
The first Aer Lingus A321LR is due to be delivered to the airline in June this year and the plan is for the aircraft to take over the airline’s transatlantic routes currently flown by considerably less efficient Boeing 757s.
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.
From 1 July 2019 Aer Lingus will fly its first Airbus A321LR between Dublin and Hartford on the following schedule:
EI131 DUB 14:10 – 16:35 BDL (Daily)
EI130 BDL 18:00 – 05:15+1 day DUB (Daily)
These flights are available to book right now on the Aer Lingus website.
Aer Lingus’ A321LR will feature 16 lie-flat Business Class seats and 186 Economy Class seats and will be the aircraft that also offers lie-flat seats on select intra-Europe short-haul routes.
Just last week we finally got confirmation that, as suspected, the Aer Lingus A321LR will offer the same lie-flat Business Class seat as the airline currently offers on its Boeing 757s – the Thompson Aero Vantage seat.
As a recap, here’s what you need to know about these Aer Lingus Business Class seats.
The official Aer Lingus A321LR seat map looks like this:
The better seats are likely to be the “throne” (solo) seats that offer a lot of privacy and storage space….
…although some passengers report that the throne seats have a smaller footwell than the seats found in pairs so you mileage may vary depending on your size.
The pairs of seat found in every-other-row should also be fine and should appeal to couples traveling together and, if you happen to be a solo traveler with no option of selecting a throne seat, the divider between the two seats should provide ample privacy if you don’t know the person seated next to you.
Bottom Line
Expect to see the Aer Lingus A321LR on most of the airlines shorter transatlantic routes within a couple of years and this will probably be the aircraft that allows Aer Lingus to expand its network to North America even more.
The next route on which we’ll see the Aer Lingus A321LR will probably be the Dublin – Minneapolis/St Paul route with Montreal expected to see A321LR service from August.
Featured image courtesy of Airbus
I flew to Dublin last September from Hartford
Excellent flight, but passengers need a bit more room, with that said, we will return to using Aer Lingus, now the negative of the overall flight, I had to book a hotel in Dublin and stay 12 + hours in Dublin and finally board a flight back to Hartford, yes , I knew this going into my vacation, Aerlingus should/ could arrange inter-Europe flights back to Dublin, continuing to Hartford a connection that doesn’t allow OVERNIGHT stay.