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?
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