Aer Lingus announced this week that they’ll be launching service to San Francisco and Toronto — their fifth and sixth North American destinations. The San Francisco service will launch April 2, 2014, and will operate 5x weekly. Meanwhile the Toronto service will launch April 21, 2014, and will operate daily.
Continue reading: Aer Lingus launching service to San Francisco and Toronto in April 2014
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
My first thoughht was thst there was nothing here for me but not so. This could be an additional route to europe, and particulalry UK. so tired of UA niput Oneworld crippled by YQ so hqve not flpwn them in a decade. Interesting.
Also helps that you can do immigration and customs in DUB and SNN allowing some of the flights to arrive as domestic legs.
Looks like they're going to 757 for BOS/JFK as well, so @lucky may have to fly them again for a new Trip Report in Business class 🙂
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Update at 0400GMT 04JUL13
AerLingus is expanding Trans-Atlantic operation out of Shannon, as a result of the introduction of Boeing 757 aircraft (configuration C12Y165). The Irish carrier will operate the Boeing 757 aircraft first on Shannon – Boston from 20JAN14, which will be operating on year-round basis instead of Summer-only. Upon the launch of Summer 2014 season on 30MAR14, the Boeing 757 will begin Shannon – New York JFK route 5 times a week, also on year-round basis.
Shannon – Boston eff 20JAN14 5 weekly
EI135 SNN1330 – 1530BOS 757 x26
EI134 BOS1920 – 0610+1SNN 757 x26
Service from 09MAR14 increases to daily. Operational schedule vary
Shannon – New York JFK eff 30MAR14 5 weekly
EI111 SNN1220 – 1440JFK 757 x26
EI110 JFK1820 – 0600+1SNN 757 x26
Reservations for both routes opened on Wednesday 03JUL13.
SFO to DUB is 5,098 miles according to GCM, so this would be in the 25K BA Avios tier. Round trip would be 50K, not bad from the west coast.
Not a fan of flying narrow 757 especially across the pond. Air Canada increased their service from seasonal to year round... I think it will hurt BA with connecting passengers.
@ John -- A "wet" lease (in theory) includes the aircraft, crew, maintenance, and insurance, vs. a dry lease, which just includes the aircraft. At least that's my understanding.
Strange that they do this at the same time as Air Canada is switching to a year-round YYZ-DUB service too.
Also, not sure if they'll have business class seats on the YYZ-DUB service. None are available for purchase at the moment anyway.
Anecdotally, I know AC has been having great success with its full J service on the one day a week it runs to DUB at the moment - selling out well in advance.
When can we start booking the YYZ-DUB direct flight? I tried searching today (for May 2014) but couldn't find it yet.
I am trying to book award seats using avios for next year using the Quantas website. The direct flights are not showing up there yet. Any other way to see award availability yet?
Thank you!
Booked SFO-DUB direct on Aer Lingus using my Avios. Called the Executive Club # as suggested...all in $55.87 one way.
Looking forward to heading home middle of April.
Without this website, I would have spent hundreds more on BA ( and had stupid layovers).
THANK you again.
Its bogus! They will not let you use your reward points to book from SFO to Dublin. I started to use the mastercard with the intention of using the points but its a scam. Now I need to switch to another card. They should say that it cannot be used from the flight from SFO to Dublin.
SF Native - it's not a scam. I wonder if you need to call back and get a different customer service rep. It took me about 25 minutes on the phone. I gave her my Avios number, she found the flight availability and I paid with my Citibank Mastercard that's actually an American Airlines rewards card! She didn't care what credit card I used to pay the booking fee and taxes.
Try again, it was time well invested for me just last week.