Aer Lingus has just revealed its first new long haul route for 2026. I’m a big fan of how Aer Lingus keeps expanding to secondary markets in the United States, since that’s great in terms of connectivity…
In this post:
Aer Lingus adding Dublin to Raleigh Durham route
As of April 13, 2026, Aer Lingus will launch 5x weekly flights between Dublin (DUB) and Raleigh Durham (RDU). The route will operate on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays, with the following schedule:
EI85 Dublin to Raleigh Durham departing 3:25PM arriving 6:55PM
EI84 Raleigh Durham to Dublin departing 8:25PM arriving 8:45AM (+1 day)
The 3,601-mile flight is blocked at 8hr30min westbound and 7hr20min eastbound. Aer Lingus will operate this route with the Airbus A321XLR, featuring 184 seats, including 16 business class seats and 168 economy class seats. This is Aer Lingus’ newest long haul plane, and I recently reviewed this experience in business class.
How this route fits into the competitive landscape
Raleigh Durham has seen a fair bit of transatlantic growth in recent years. Currently, the airport has flights on Air France to Paris (CDG), on American to London (LHR), on Icelandair to Keflavik (KEF), and on Lufthansa to Frankfurt (FRA).
It’s not surprising to see Aer Lingus add service as well, and I have to imagine that the airport is offering significant incentives to the airline for adding these flights. Taking advantage of those subsidies seems to be a major part of Aer Lingus’ strategy with its transatlantic growth.
As far as Aer Lingus’ destinations in the United States go, the airline otherwise serves Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Cleveland (CLE), Denver (DEN), Hartford (BDL), Indianapolis (IND), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), Minneapolis (MSP), New York (JFK), Nashville (BNA), Newark (EWR), Orlando (MCO), Philadelphia (PHL), San Francisco (SFO), Seattle (SEA), and Washington (IAD). Aer Lingus has done quite the job expanding to secondary markets, as you can tell.
What’s funny about Aer Lingus is that the airline belongs to the oneworld transatlantic joint venture, with American, British Airways, Finnair, and Iberia. Despite that, the airline very much seems to do its own thing, and doesn’t have nearly the level of coordination you’ll find among the other airlines. I’m still puzzled by Aer Lingus’ integration into that joint venture, but regardless, it’s always cool to see flights launched in markets like this.
Bottom line
As of April 2026, Aer Lingus will add flights between Dublin and Raleigh Durham. This will be the airport’s fifth transatlantic service, so it’s always nice to see growth like this. Hopefully Aer Lingus finds success here, as it’ll be the second oneworld transatlantic joint venture airline operating long haul flights from the airport.
What do you make of Aer Lingus launching Raleigh Durham flights?
Raleigh-Durham needs a Milan (MXP) service.
Aer Lingus really found success in the US secondary markets especially with the A321LR/XLR. I wonder what's next for them? I can maybe see MSY, MCI, DTW & PIT in the cards at some point if we're looking at other mid-sized cities that they currently do not serve.
An interesting article comparison …. Aer Lingus are reported to fly the A321 with true Business Class seats and layout. However, Delta will present the aircraft with a cabin to be called “First Class”. In reality the Delta offering will be little more than a premium economy cabin layout with last century business class seats.
Hypocrisy, miss information, or, just more mind games for the gimmers and hoggets?
Been waiting for this one. Makes a lot of sense. and UNC is playing football in Dublin next September in the Aer Lingus classic so figured this would be announced to start next year.
Dublin is not only the gateway to Ireland (fascinating destination) but also to/from the UK. The UK and Ireland have an open travel agreement (like the Schengen zone), so once you enter ne you should be good for the rest of your trip. And, if you depart via DUB not only can you take care of US customs/immigration at the DHS facility in Dublin but you can also dodge the UK's confiscatory air passenger duty on departures.
The free movement of the CTA (Common Travel Area) only applies to Irish & UK citizens, so entry to Ireland does not automatically guarantee entry to the UK if connecting via DUB for example.
We flew from the USA to DUB, spent the night then flew on to MAN. That was treated as a domestic flight. As Americans, we were treated no differently than those from IRL or the UK.
Further, there are no checks on the border between IRL and NI or on ferries between Ireland and the UK.
I wonder how we'll see the JV manage the LHR vs DUB flights together. Seems like DUB could handle a lot of the easy short hops to Europe with lower O&D while LHR can focus more on O&D and some of the long haul connections.
I'll never understand why Aer Lingus has not joined Oneworld
Must be a fees issue but I agree.
Wonderful addition!
What’s funny is Delta executives mentioning moderation in the main cabin to Europe, while there has been a healthy amount of new flights to secondary transatlantic getaways such as Raleigh, Nashville and Others through Iceland Air and Air Linguis especially.
This means some customers who would have taken a legacy US carrier will now be taking a different carrier.
RDU currently has flights to LHR on American, FRA on Lufthansa, CDG on Air France, and KEF on Icand Air. So this is definitely a welcome addition.
in addition to what Aaron said, DL has access to industry data and knows how what it sees fits in with what other carriers are seeing.
DL did say that they are more than making up for the softening of peak summer economy cabin demand w/ demand elsewhere that is just as strong if not stronger. They just didn't say what other pieces other than corporate (which they said is strong) and how those pieces...
in addition to what Aaron said, DL has access to industry data and knows how what it sees fits in with what other carriers are seeing.
DL did say that they are more than making up for the softening of peak summer economy cabin demand w/ demand elsewhere that is just as strong if not stronger. They just didn't say what other pieces other than corporate (which they said is strong) and how those pieces balance each other.
and DL has credibility w/ industry analysts because they speak to trends in the industry rather than talking incessantly about taking out the competition. Let's see what other airlines say from both sides of the Atlantic. IAG is a publicly traded company so gets similar questions and has to answer questions posed to it just as truthfully and honestly as DL does in the US.
New plane for Nashville is horrible for transatlantic flights! No room whatsoever for passengers never mind the crew!