Review: Aer Lingus AerSpace Airbus A320 (DUB-MAD)

For the first segment of the return portion of my trip across the Atlantic on the Airbus A321XLR,  I flew Aer Lingus’ Airbus A320 AerSpace on the 2hr5min flight from Dublin (DUB) to Madrid (MAD).

AerSpace is Aer Lingus’ premium product on short haul flights, but it’s not quite business class. Essentially, you get lounge access, priority boarding, a seat in the first row with a blocked middle (unless you’re on an A321LR/XLR between transatlantic turns), a free drink and snack, etc. However, it’s not actually a separate cabin, and a step down from business class.

I’m happy I had the chance to finally check out the AerSpace product, and it was roughly what I expected. I prefer this to economy, but it’s definitely not as good as business class. Perhaps my bigger frustration is the lack of Wi-Fi, power ports, etc., as Aer Lingus’ A320s are quite outdated.

How I booked my Aer Lingus AerSpace ticket

There’s no way to redeem points directly for Aer Lingus AerSpace, so I paid cash for this segment of the trip. Specifically, I booked the following for $357.05 (admittedly this was way more expensive than usual, but I booked last minute, and this was the only flight portion of the trip I paid cash for):

4/30 EI592 Dublin to Madrid departing 6:20AM arriving 9:55AM

For my particular flight, this was a little under double the price of the cheapest economy fare. However, it also came with lots of inclusions.

Aer Lingus AerSpace lounge & boarding

In a previous installment, I reviewed the Aer Lingus Lounge Dublin, which AerSpace passengers get access to. It’s a decent facility, but nothing worth arriving too early to use.

My flight was departing from gate 335, which is an interesting setup, as that “gate” is in fact a remote terminal. Essentially, you take a bus from the main part of the terminal, and then it drops you off in a concourse that has six gates, lettered A to F.

Boarding started at 5:40AM, 40 minutes before departure.

This area of the terminal has no jet bridges, so instead, you just have your boarding pass scanned, and then follow a specific path toward an aircraft. My flight was operated by a 19-year-old A320 with the registration code EI-DER.

Aer Lingus A320 AerSpace cabin & seats

Aer Lingus’ Airbus A320s are configured with 174 seats, spread across 29 rows, in a 3-3 configuration. As you’d expect, it’s a pretty bare bones cabin, and it didn’t feel like this one had been updated any time recently.

The regular economy seats reportedly have around 30″ of pitch, which is tight, but standard.

AerSpace passengers, meanwhile, get seated in the first row, which at least has a little more legroom. Unlike intra-Europe business class, there’s no curtain separating this from the rest of the plane, so most passengers probably don’t even realize that the first row is a premium product.

I assigned myself seat 1F, the window seat on the right side. If traveling in AerSpace, I’d highly recommend selecting one of the window seats, since the aisle seats in the first row are more impacted by foot traffic, including people queuing to use the lavatory (and that’s especially unpleasant on morning flights).

In retrospect, I’d probably select seat 1A over seat 1F, since I basically had a direct line of sight of the crew in the jump seat for much of the flight.

The legroom in the bulkhead row is decent, certainly better than you’ll find in the rest of the plane.

The tray table setup is pretty standard, and it folds out from the side of the seat, and can be folded in half.

Unfortunately Aer Lingus’ A320 cabins are really disappointing in terms of the amenities. There are no power ports, there’s no Wi-Fi, and there’s no streaming entertainment. Bleh!

The overhead consoles at least had individual air nozzles, so there’s that…

AerSpace passengers also get dedicated overhead bins, and during boarding, they were closed, so that others wouldn’t think to place their bags there. Given Aer Lingus’ strict carry-on allowance, it’s not like overhead bin space is much of an issue, anyway.

All-in-all, the product was as expected — it’s better than economy, but that’s about it. I do wish Aer Lingus had Wi-Fi and power ports.

Aer Lingus A320 departure from Dublin

Boarding took quite a bit of time, and wrapped up at 6:15AM, five minutes ahead of scheduled departure time, at which point the door closed. I overheard the ground staff tell the flight attendant that there were 130 passengers onboard, so the flight was around 75% full. I had the entire row to myself, as there were no other AerSpace passengers.

Also at 6:15AM, the first officer was on the PA to announce our anticipated 10-minute taxi, and our flight time of 2hr5min. There were still some bags to be loaded, and we ended up pushing back at 6:25AM. Since we were at the far gate, it was a really long push back.

At 6:35AM, we began our taxi out to runway 10R, which was quite a distance from the terminal, and required crossing another set of runways.

At 6:45AM, we were cleared for takeoff.

It was a gorgeous morning, and we had a smooth climb out.

We climbed right out over the Irish Sea, and had some beautiful views of the coast. The seatbelt sign was turned off around 10 minutes after takeoff.

Aer Lingus AerSpace food & drinks

Aer Lingus offers a buy on board concept on its regional flights, with the inflight menu known as Bia. I won’t post the whole thing here, since it’s 68 pages, but you can find it on this page.

AerSpace passengers receive one complimentary drink (hot, cold, or alcoholic) and one food item (snack, sandwich, or wrap) from the buy on board menu.

I was happy to see that Aer Lingus had iced coffee on the menu (ordinarily €3.75), so I selected a 250ml Jimmy’s Iced Coffee as my drink.

As someone who doesn’t eat pork, there were slim pickings among the fresh breakfast options, with choices like a breakfast wrap with pork sausage, and an Irish breakfast with pork sausage. So I tried to order the falafel piri pri hummus wrap, but after the crew checked, they found that none had been catered.

So I ended up settling on the salt ‘n’ chilli chicken wrap (ordinarily €6.25), which was decently good, and had a bit of a kick to it. Not usually what I’d eat at 7AM, but it’s not like my body knew what time it way, anyway…

The crew knows to just serve AerSpace customers their items for free, but if you want anything else, you’ll have to pay.

Aer Lingus A320 AerSpace lavatory

AerSpace doesn’t come with a dedicated lavatory, so the forward A320 lavatory can be used by all passengers. The lavatory was as basic as you’d expect.

Aer Lingus AerSpace service

The crew on this sector was totally fine, but unmemorable. Obviously there’s no special service in AerSpace, but they weren’t particularly charismatic or friendly either. They went through the motions and did their jobs, and that’s it. It was quite a contrast to the excellent service I had on the transatlantic flight.

Aer Lingus A320 arrival in Madrid

It was a pretty boring flight, given the lack of inflight entertainment, so I primarily just gazed out the window. At 9:30AM local time, we started our initial descent, at which point the first officer announced that we’d be landing in around 25 minutes.

10 minutes later, the seatbelt sign was turned on, and the crew prepared the cabin for landing.

It was a surprisingly turbulent approach, as there were some pretty gusty winds that threw us around a bit.

Things smoothed out on our final approach, and we touched down at 9:55AM.

From there we had a short five-minute taxi to our arrival gate, where we pulled in at 10AM, five minutes behind schedule.

I quickly cleared security, and then headed to the departure gate for my Iberia Airbus A321XLR business class flight to Washington (IAD).

Bottom line

Aer Lingus’ AerSpace product is an okay way to fly. It’s better than economy, but not as good as business class. Ultimately it offers lounge access, a seat in the first row with a blocked middle, and a free drink and snack.

I wouldn’t recommend paying a huge premium for this, but if the price is right, it could be a decent upgrade over the standard economy product. Personally, I’d rather fly an airline with an intra-Europe business class product, given the option. For that matter, I’d rather fly an airline with Wi-Fi, streaming entertainment and/or power ports, none of which Aer Lingus offers on these jets.

The one thing worth emphasizing is that Aer Lingus’ AerSpace product is much better if you end up on an A321LR or A321XLR, as these are flown on some intra-Europe flights between transatlantic rotations. That gets you a flat bed, which is pretty awesome.

What’s your take on Aer Lingus’ A320 AerSpace?