Aer Lingus has been growing their US route network significantly the past few years, in a steady but consistent way.
This year we’ve seen Aer Lingus add flights to Los Angeles, Hartford, and Newark. Last year Aer Lingus added frequencies to New York and San Francisco, and added a new route to Washington Dulles. Meanwhile in 2014 they started flying to Toronto and San Francisco. So they’re not growing at a Gulf carrier pace, but they are adding capacity consistently.
Well, per @airlineroute, Aer Lingus has just announced their first new longhaul route for 2017. Aer Lingus will begin flying 3x weekly between Dublin and Miami as of September 1, 2017. The route will operate with the following schedule on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays:
EI141 Dublin to Miami departing 3:00PM arriving 7:15PM
EI130 Miami to Dublin departing 9:10PM arriving 10:35AM (+1 day)
The flight will be operated by an Airbus A330, featuring Aer Lingus’ new fully flat staggered seats.
Aer Lingus has really invested in their product lately, so the planes have Wi-Fi, dine on demand and an arrivals lounge for business class passengers, etc. I flew Aer Lingus before they installed their new business class product, and I hope to fly them again soon, as they’re near the top of the list of airlines I want to review.
If you’d like to redeem miles on this, Aer Lingus seems to have two business class and four economy class award seats per flight.
Your best bet for booking these awards is through British Airways Executive Club. You can look up availability on ExpertFlyer, though when you redeem your Avios you’ll have to call to do so. These awards will cost you:
- 25,000 Avios one-way in economy class
- 75,000 Avios one-way in business class
Best of all, carrier imposed surcharges on Aer Lingus are limited, so you won’t be stuck with the $1,000+ in fees you’d pay for a roundtrip British Airways award.
Bottom line
Fort Lauderdale Airport has been getting a lot of love lately (especially from British Airways and Emirates), so it’s nice to see Miami get some love as well. I also love Aer Lingus, so am happy to see them expand to more US destinations. They have two business class award seats per flight as of now, so this is a great opportunity to redeem miles on them, as they often don’t make award seats available (it’s very tough to find business class seats to/from Los Angeles and San Francisco).
In theory Aer Lingus is eventually supposed to join oneworld, though we don’t yet have a timeline for that. Once that happens there will be a lot more opportunities to redeem miles on them.
Anyone planning on taking this new Aer Lingus between Dublin and Miami?
@majik: I should have clarified that for this particular trip, I will have some tight windows for flight times to fit in that for whatever reason just did not seem to work with what I was seeing available from other, more trusted airlines like you mentioned, but before this announcement, it was looking like the only option that would work time wise and not cost a ridiculous amount was going to be a codeshare with...
@majik: I should have clarified that for this particular trip, I will have some tight windows for flight times to fit in that for whatever reason just did not seem to work with what I was seeing available from other, more trusted airlines like you mentioned, but before this announcement, it was looking like the only option that would work time wise and not cost a ridiculous amount was going to be a codeshare with JetBlue through JFK on EI anyway so might as well take a direct...that is if no better options open up closer to the time to book flights.I appreciate the insight though that this is certainly not a "premier" product as I have heard that sentiment echoed many times.
@Todd You have lots of options to get to DUB on proper airlines via LHR, FRA or AMS. I'd even pick a US legacy carrier over EI, there's a thin sliver of airline toilet paper separating EI from the likes of Ryanair and Norwegian :)
As for EI's 'expansion', most of these 'new' routes are just old ones resumed. SFO, LAX, IAD, EWR, were all previously on the EI schedules years ago. They have a...
@Todd You have lots of options to get to DUB on proper airlines via LHR, FRA or AMS. I'd even pick a US legacy carrier over EI, there's a thin sliver of airline toilet paper separating EI from the likes of Ryanair and Norwegian :)
As for EI's 'expansion', most of these 'new' routes are just old ones resumed. SFO, LAX, IAD, EWR, were all previously on the EI schedules years ago. They have a great marketing team at EI. MIA is really the very first new North American route in years and they're sorely lacking in the Pacific Northwest too, an area with huge economic ties to Ireland.
Perfect timing! I plan to head to Ireland in March 2018 and was not liking what had looked like were my best flight options up until now. Kind of wish the flight left Dublin a little earlier to get back home at a reasonable hour, but hoping when the time comes I can definitely snag some business awards or a good fare deal to try this product!
One more pulling factor. The WiFi is FREE for J class passengers!!! Not many airlines do that!