Aer Lingus Adding Flights To Minneapolis & Montreal

Some rogue 2018s have crept in - I think the launch dates are 2019.

Good bit of surprise here in Ireland that they went for MSP, no real Irish connection there.

Oh (canada) I do hope that AerLingus keeps Montreal-Dublin under the 3000mile band. 75k avios roundtrip for business lie-flat to Europe would be a dream come true!

How telling that "our first look at the seat map on the plane" only shows the business cabin...

@ carswell -- Economy is in a 3-3 configuration, like every single A321 in the world. It's not like a seatmap reveals pitch or anything else. What am I missing?

I am based at MSP and you would be surprised how many people fly to or connect through here from/to Europe. I fly Delta to AMS or LHR at least once a month and the planes are always full. Not sure how comfortable will be to fly on a 757 across the pond for almost 9 hours.

They will rely entirely on OD traffic as if you want to fly elsewhere it would be Air France klm delta & Virgin So they’ve got their work cut out. You would not fly see Lingus to MSP and onward on delta as there won’t be any low fare combinations as delta & partners won’t want to combine their fares with Aer Lingus. Plus the city is a Sky Miles fortress
Cities like Los Angeles are different as they have a huge population and vast number of airlines and routes

Fantastic news! Too bad not in time for my son's HS band's trip to Ireland next spring 🙁

You'll be surprised how much traffic MSP-Europe has - Mpls/St. Paul has the 7th highest per capital income among the metro areas in the US. DL/AF/KL's flights (AMS/CDG/LHR/KEF) across the pond have been doing very well as Santastico mentioned. And I heard Icelandair (up to 2x daily in the summer) and Condor (seasonal to FRA) are doing not shabby as well.

Now if only we can get BA or LH here...

No onward connections at MSP, but Dub-hub can pull feed from secondary EU cities. Also lots of Irish roots in St.Paul, not to mention that Twin Cities and Ireland are 2 of the largest hubs for the Medical Device industry, so there will also be some business travel. Wonder if DL will respond ?

@Sean@MSP/@Tom: I would say MSP is one of the most underrated airports in the US. I cannot find an easier airport to go through immigration and then connect to other flights than MSP. I fly from Europe once a month into MSP. By the time the plane lands it takes no longer than 5 minutes to be at the gate which is a 2 minute walk to immigration which is always empty. Bags arrive very fast so from landing to be out on the terminal or going home is about 15 minutes max. Also, we are in the middle of the country so flying West or South from here is very easy. Biggest problem I find flying out of MSP to Europe is that Delta charges an arm and a leg. My company pays my Delta One flights but I struggle when I see invoices for almost $10k. Thus, competition is more than welcome. Would love to see more non Skyteam airlines flying out from here but problem would be very limited connections on StarAlliance or OneWorld from here since Delta basically owns this airport.

Air Transat also operated this route from Montreal to Dublin until this summer. Once AC announced, they backed off. Let's see if Aer Lingus can bring the fight to Air Canada.

Well it's nice to see a real business class product for TATL traffic, especially from Montreal, on this route. I was very disappointed Air Canada didn't envision lie-flat seats in the MAX8. Hopefully this will encourage AC to have different configurations on future MAX8/MAX9 aircraft to offer lie flat business on narrow-bodies to Europe, to compete on this route and others.

I wouldn't fly AC to DUB, but maybe Aer Lingus to DUB and connect onwards...
AC does however have the BEST premium economy on the MAX8 - leg room for days!

I’m so excited
Fares to Europe from MSP are out of control
And they’re packed
This can help that

I though you could redeem Alaska miles on Aer Lingus?