Aer Lingus is the sixth-largest European operator to the US, based on peak summer flights. Only British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France, Virgin Atlantic, and Turkish Airlines have more services. Might the Irish flag carrier be planning more US routes? Raleigh Durham or Nashville are rumored, perhaps when its Airbus A321XLRs arrive.
Aer Lingus's summer 2024 US network
The airline's US network comprises 14 routes from Dublin, two from Shannon, and – thanks to its UK unit – two from Manchester. All are shown on the following map, although it is quite hard to read.
Routes include Dublin to Denver, which begins on May 17, 2024; it will be the first time that Colorado has had Ireland flights. Booking data shows Denver was the Irish capital's second-largest unserved market in the past year, behind only Las Vegas. It builds on the commencement of Dublin-Cleveland on May 19, 2023, and the return of Denver-Minneapolis on April 29, 2024.
As of February 4th, and subject to change, it plans 142 weekly flights to the US (double for both ways) this August. That is a remarkable 23% more than what was available in 2019 and 5% more than in August 2023.
As you might expect, seats for sale have risen less versus 2019 (+19%) due to greater use of fairly low-capacity A321LRs. However, the difference is perhaps not as great as might be expected, as it was a period when it used wet-leased Boeing 757s and had a small number of LR services.
A breakdown of its network: August
Aer Lingus's 142 weekly services are summarized as follows. Again, this is based on August. Some routes will have a varying number of flights this month; where this happens, I have stated the most common frequency.
Dublin-Boston: double daily A330-300
Dublin-Chicago O'Hare: double daily; 12 weekly A330-300, two weekly A330-200
Dublin-New York JFK: double daily A330-300
Dublin-Washington Dulles: double daily A321LR
Dublin-Hartford: daily A321LR
Dublin-Los Angeles: daily A330-300
Dublin-Newark: daily A321LR
Dublin-Philadelphia: daily A321LR
Dublin-San Francisco: daily A330-300
Manchester-JFK: (mainly) daily A330-300
Manchester-Orlando: daily A330-300
Shannon-Boston: daily A321LR
Shannon-JFK: daily A321LR
Dublin-Seattle: six weekly A330-200
Dublin-Orlando: (mainly) five weekly A330-300
Denver-Cleveland: four weekly A321LR
Dublin-Denver: four weekly A330-200
Denver-Minneapolis: four weekly A330-200
There's also winter-seasonal Miami...
While the above list is based on the peak summer, Aer Lingus also has a winter-only route: Dublin to Miami. Served three weekly using the A330-300, it will operate until March 29 and will return on October 27, the day northern airlines switch to winter schedules.
Only Baltimore has been cut since 1990
Using US Department of Transportation T-100 data to examine Aer Lingus' US network since 1990 reveals that only Baltimore is no longer served.
In what might feel like a lifetime ago, it flew to the Maryland airport from Shannon between September 2000 and December 2004 using the A330-200. Media reports at the time indicated that Dublin-Baltimore was to begin, which would make sense, but T-100 information suggests it didn't.
This article originally appeared in Simple Flying.
Photo: Mark Bess/ Flickr
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