Aer Lingus To Expand US Flights, Including Dallas?

While we see airlines like Emirates and Etihad with explosive growth, Aer Lingus has taken an extremely conservative approach with their growth. That’s largely because they don’t have unlimited funds and weren’t doing especially well financially.

Back in the day they had more longhaul service, though over the years they cut a few of their longhaul routes. Then they finally added flights to San Francisco and Toronto this April, and apparently they’ve been performing exceptionally well, so they’re looking at further expanding their longhaul operations.

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Via the Independent:

The relaunched Dublin-San Francisco route that started operations in April has performed beyond Aer Lingus’ expectations.

Its new services to the city and to Toronto from Dublin added €22m in revenue in the second quarter.

Aer Lingus to expand to Dallas?

Presently Aer Lingus operates longhaul flights from Dublin to Boston, Chicago, New York, Orlando, San Francisco, and Toronto. Then they also operate flights from Shannon to Boston and New York.

If they were to expand, I would have guessed the first destinations would be Los Angeles, Miami, and Washington Dulles. But it seems they have other plans.

Via Business World:

Aer Lingus today said it is considering opening up a direct route to Dallas in Texas following the success of its San Francisco and Toronto services.

The airline’s chief executive, Christoph Mueller, said the airline is intent on starting new routes and increasing capacity to North America after enjoying its best trading in at least five years and reversing a profit warning it issued in June, Irish American publication, Irish Central reported.

And in an interview with the Irish Independent, Mueller confirmed that new services are already on track and would come to fruition before he leaves the Irish airline next May.

While Dallas is a big business market, I’m still kind of shocked that’s the next place they’d expand to. Aer Lingus has a partnership with United, so if you’re going to expand to Texas, Houston seems much more logical to me, since they wouldn’t be relying solely on O&D traffic. But I’m sure they’ve thought it through and crunched the numbers, given what a conservative airline they are.

Where will Aer Lingus get planes for expansion?

The big question is where Aer Lingus will get the planes from. Presently their longhaul fleet consists of:

• Four A330-300 aircraft
• Three A330-200 aircraft
• Three Boeing 757-200 aircraft, which are leased

My guess is that they’ll continue to lease some 757-200 aircraft to put on their east coast routes (like they have on their Toronto to Dublin and Boston to Shannon routes), and then use the A330s for newer longhaul routes. They also have some A350s on order, though those won’t be delivered until 2016 at the earliest.

Aer Lingus A330

Aer Lingus is great for award redemptions

Growth by Aer Lingus should be one of the most exciting pieces of news for those of us redeeming miles. Not only do they have an awesome new business class product coming out next year, but they’re also one of the best uses of British Airways Avios.

Aer Lingus new business class A330

British Airways Avios are among the easiest points currency to come by, given that they partner with American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest. And given that they don’t impose fuel surcharges and generally have good award availability, I’m sure many of us will continue to redeem miles on them.

Bottom line

It’s always exciting to see the “underdog” adding new routes, and I expect over the next five years or so we’ll see quite a bit of growth from Aer Lingus, as they take delivery of A350 aircraft.

Which cities do you think Aer Lingus will start service to?