United Airlines has just announced a cool new route from the Bay Area.
Continue reading: United Airlines To Launch San Francisco To Dublin Flight
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
This is actually pretty significant for Pacific travel from Ireland, including Hawaii. Up until now it was impossible for me to fly from Ireland to Hawaii in under 3 flights on a single itinerary. Now it's only 1 stop away!
Nerd bird. Lot of US tech companies have their European HQ in Dublin. Dublin will probably become even hotter as a business destination now that Brexit appears certain.
Some Brits like to hop over to Ireland for flights to North America, as the airport fees and taxes at DUB are much lower than UK airports. It's always worth comparing flights to and from Dublin with those to/from London.
There are numerous ferries between Dublin and the UK, as well as dozens of short-haul flights of course.
Until United has Polaris on this route I will continue to take Aer Lingus A330 with its "throne seats".
@Jesse You could always go one stop from Ireland to Hawaii, through most major US East Coast cities. For example, DUB-BOS-HNL, or DUB-JFK-HNL.
finally! was wondering what took them so long. Apple has very substantial operations in Ireland and Dublin in particular.
If my count is accurate, this would be UA's 7th European destination out of SFO (which is ridiculous for west coast hub) - LHR CDG AMS FRA MUC ZRH DUB, and its 9th by DOT's definition of Atlantic (add in TLV and DEL).
There are still those at FT based in SFO who always talk about the "great old days" of UA - for them, it's dog whistle for "BKK direct flight", I guess having that BKK 5th freedom is more important than a very rapid expansion on the Atlantic side, going from just 2 (longstanding LHR and FRA ones), to 9 by now.
UA SFO on the Atlantic front is ridiculous to a point it's nearly at the level of AA out of ORD and likely surpassed AA from CLT.
@Sid - no you could not. those BOS/JFK flights to HNL leave early in the morning from BOS/JFK. You'd need to spend the night in BOS or JFK to make the connection, which isnt exactly convenient.
@henry LAX - UA at SFO surpassed AA at ORD a long time ago. While AA operates a number of seasonal nonstops from ORD to Europe, it only operates, I think, one year round route. Definitely ORD-LHR is year round, though I think most others might just be seasonal.
A minor suggestion (and yes, it is minor). Can you include flight time when you list the times? Most of us don't have all of the time zones memorized (although I probably could do a decent guess).
Thanks.
(And you did include the time for your other story about BA's new flight.)
Interesting mention of Aer Lingus’ partnership with UA vs OneWorld alliance. Even more complicated, Aer Lingus uses T2 at LHR with a lounge, a *A fortress.
@Jesse
You could've booked a flight from Aer Lingus from Dublin to Seattle, then continued onwards to somewhere in Hawaii with Alaska 🙂
When Aer Lingus relaunched their SFO service, it was contingent upon signing contracts with Companies in the Valley to fill those flights. Apple, Facebook and others signed on and the flight was launched.
Now, UA is entering the market and wonder if those Companies are going to jump From EI to UA.
I hate that United's new 787 configurations hardly has any business or extra-legroom economy plus seats. They should at the very least have more Economy Plus seats to award loyal Premier members who book United in economy for personal travel. When booking last-minute economy travel, few Economy Plus seats are likely to be available, so Premier members will likely end up in regular economy seats. At that point, Premier members may as well book on an airline that's better than United.
Some competition on this route will be nice.
In business, Aer Lingus's nonstop flight is always commanding a high price while a one stop via LHR or AMS or Germany is much more competitive.
The direct is reliably filled with Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. business travel on negotiated corporate rates.
Hmmm, I thought I was on that flight New Years day 2016, and it was some kind of introductory offer, $ 1,360 in Business Dublin to Maui via SFO, return, one year open. So I actually made two Maui to Munich trips out of it, in December/January, and May/June, doing the complimentary legs with miles.