Review: Aer Lingus AerSpace Airbus A321LR (CDG-DUB)

For the next sector of my Iceland to The Residence via Cambodia trip, it was time to fly Aer Lingus’ A321LR AerSpace on the 80-minute flight from Paris (CDG) to Dublin (DUB). For those not familiar, AerSpace is Aer Lingus’ premium seating on regional flights.

In terms of soft product, AerSpace is nothing exciting, as you just get a free drink and snack from the buy on board menu. What’s different is the hard product, and that differs greatly between planes. If you fly in AerSpace on an A320, you simply get a seat in the first row with a blocked middle. But as I see it, what’s so awesome is that Aer Lingus flies a bunch of A321LR/XLRs on short European routes, and the flat beds at the front of the plane are sold as AerSpace.

It’s tough to beat getting a flat bed on a short flight within Europe at an affordable cost, so I’d consider this to be a great value product. Let me emphasize that I’ve separately reviewed the Aer Lingus A321XLR business class experience, which is how these seats are marketed on long haul flights (with a completely different service experience).

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. I booked the following flight for $212.11 in AerSpace:

11/05 EI521 Paris to Dublin departing 10:30AM arriving 11:15AM

For my particular flight, this was around 50% more than the price of the cheapest economy fare. I considered that to be a good deal, especially since AerSpace comes with lots of inclusions (like a full size carry-on).

This was a segment I needed in order to connect two long haul flights, as I arrived in Paris in Etihad’s A380 The Residence from Abu Dhabi (AUH), and was connecting in Dublin to Aer Lingus’ A330 business class to Boston (BOS).

Aer Lingus AerSpace lounge & boarding

In theory, Aer Lingus AerSpace passengers get lounge access, though only at select airports. Unfortunately nowadays Aer Lingus doesn’t offer lounge access at Paris Charles de Gaulle, and it’s one of the few airports in Europe where that’s the case, which isn’t ideal.

On the plus side, I’ve gotta say, Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle is a mighty nice place to pass some time. Doesn’t this gate area basically look like a lounge (or even nicer than many lounges)?

So I grabbed a cup of coffee at a cafe in the terminal and powered up my laptop in the gate area, and it was every bit as pleasant as being in a lounge.

My flight was departing from gate 24, and according to my boarding pass, boarding was supposed to start at 9:55AM, 35 minutes before departure.

To my surprise, at 9:20AM boarding was called, with AerSpace passengers being invited to board first. I was genuinely confused, and wondered if I had looked at my boarding pass wrong, and 9:55AM was actually the departure time.

As my boarding pass was scanned, I asked the gate agent if the flight was leaving from a remote stand, since there was no plane at the gate. She looked at me confused, so I rephrased, and asked if we had to take a bus to the plane. She responded to that by saying “no,” and indicating that the plane was leaving from the gate in front of us. Hmm, okay…

In the end, the inbound aircraft only landed at 9:20AM, and made it to the gate at 9:25AM.

We all stood in the area leading up to the jet bridge for nearly 20 minutes, as boarding of the aircraft finally started at 9:40AM. Interestingly, boarding also happened through forward and rear doors, so while some passengers used the forward jet bridge, others went down a set of stairs, across the apron, and then walked up the rear stairs.

This all seemed like a huge production to board a flight that was mostly empty, where boarding wrapped up 40 minutes before departure… only for us to then sit there for that entire time.

Aer Lingus A321LR AerSpace cabin & seats

I boarded the Aer Lingus A321LR through the forward door, and turned right into the business class cabin… or, AerSpace cabin, as it was marketed on this flight. The cabin consists of 16 seats, spread across five rows, in an alternating 2-2 and 1-1 configuration.

This is a staggered configuration, and specifically, is based on the Thompson Aero Vantage platform. I’ve reviewed these seats in great detail, so won’t talk too much about them this time around.

While the pairs of seats are great for those traveling with a companion…

…it’s hard to beat the throne seats when traveling alone, so I assigned myself seat 5A, the rear left throne seat, in the second to last row of the cabin.

Each seat has a 16″ seat back monitor, a tray table that folds out from the side of the seat, AC and USB-A charging, and individual air nozzles.

Suffice it to say that this is a massive step up from your typical intra-Europe business class.

Aer Lingus A321LR AerSpace entertainment & Wi-Fi

Aer Lingus’ A321LRs boast seat back entertainment, with movies, TV shows, audio, and games, on demand. The system has a good selection, and I didn’t take too many pictures of the screen, since there was a bit of a glare on this short daytime flight. Instead, I just kept an eye on the map feature.

Aer Lingus’ A321LRs also have Wi-Fi available at a cost, though it wasn’t functioning on this flight.

Aer Lingus A321LR departure from Paris

This flight wasn’t full at all, so boarding wrapped up in no time, and then we just had to wait for an extended period, for our scheduled departure time. At 10:10AM the captain made his welcome aboard announcement, informing us of our flight time of 80 minutes, and our anticipated departure in around 10 minutes.

Sure enough, at 10:20AM the main cabin door closed, with seven of the 16 AerSpace seats occupied. Then at 10:25AM, we began our pushback, at which point the safety briefing was performed.

At 10:30AM we began our taxi out to runway 9L, which took some time.

There was a bit of traffic, including two planes in special Star Alliance liveries!

Sure enough, at 10:45AM we were cleared for takeoff, and had a very short takeoff roll.

It was a stunning day around Paris, and I loved the views on the climb out. The seatbelt sign was turned off around 10 minutes after takeoff.

Aer Lingus AerSpace food & drinks

The Aer Lingus AerSpace soft product is fairly minimal. Aer Lingus has a buy on board concept on intra-Europe flights, known as Bia. I won’t post the whole menu here, since it’s 68 pages, but you can find it here.

The idea is that AerSpace passengers receive one complimentary food item, and one complimentary drink. To be clear, this isn’t like business class, where there’s unlimited service, but instead you’re restricted to one of each item, and it’s just part of the overall service flow in the cabin.

It’s odd, because Aer Lingus has a massive selection in the buy on board menu, but then many of the options just aren’t available. My first three options all ended up not being catered, so I just opted for a coffee and a muffin. I at least appreciated the proper milk pouches, since so many airlines don’t have that.

Aer Lingus A321LR AerSpace lavatory

Aer Lingus has a lavatory at the front of the A321LR. Unlike when this cabin is marketed as business class, though, this lavatory isn’t actually reserved for AerSpace passengers, as it can be used by anyone onboard.

It was nice that the elevated Jo Browne amenities from long haul business class flights remained in the lavatory.

Aer Lingus AerSpace service

I’ve always had pretty good service on Aer Lingus, though perhaps that also reflects my generally positive perception of Irish culture. I find that Aer Lingus crews are typically friendly, fun, and like to have a good time, and this crew was no exception.

I will say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crew spend as much time engaging in galley banter as this crew did, at least proportional to the flight length. For the roughly 40 minutes we had on the ground, plus for most of the flight, four crew members were just in the forward galley chatting and laughing loudly.

It’s nice to see people enjoying their jobs and the people they work with, so it didn’t bother me, especially since they performed the little service required (though it would be a different story on an overnight flight). But it was definitely noteworthy how they must’ve collectively spent over an hour in the galley just chatting.

Aer Lingus A321LR arrival in Dublin

At 10:30AM Dublin time (there was a one hour time change compared to Paris), the captain was on the PA to announce that we were at 36,000 feet and near Manchester, and would be landing in around 40 minutes, at 11:10AM, with a 10 minute taxi after that.

Sure enough, we started our descent around 10 minutes after that, and then the seatbelt sign was turned on around 15 minutes later.

The views on approach were beautiful…

As predicted, we touched down at 11:10AM on runway 10L, and then we arrived at our gate at 11:15AM.

From there, I headed to the US Preclearance facility, in anticipation of my Aer Lingus A330 business class flight back to the United States.

Bottom line

Aer Lingus’ A321LR AerSpace product is probably one of the best value premium flight experiences in Europe. AerSpace as such is sort of just a bundled economy experience, and is nothing special. However, Aer Lingus operates a meaningful number of A321LR/XLRs on intra-Europe flights, featuring flat beds in the front of the cabin. If you can get on one of those flights, you’re in for quite a treat, as it’s in a different league than the A320 experience.

Admittedly the soft product isn’t much to get excited about, with the airline seemingly struggling to actually have many of the items in the buy on board magazine. For that matter, the whole boarding process was very strange.

Either way, you can’t beat the price of this experience, and I do think AerSpace on the Aer Lingus A321 offers value.

What do you make of Aer Lingus’ A321LR AerSpace cabin?