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Aer Lingus has just announced that it plans to offer a non-stop service between Dublin and Seattle in 2018. Back at the beginning of October the IAG owned Irish airline announced that it would commence service between Dublin and Philadelphia from March 2018 and now it would appear that West Coast is calling too.
From 18 May 2018 Aer Lingus will fly a non-stop service between Dublin and Seattle 4x per week making the city Aer Lingus’ 15th destination in North America.
The route will be operated using the airline’s A330 aircraft and will run on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday on the following schedule:
EI99 DUB 15:50 – 17:35 SEA
EI98 SEA 19:20 – 12:35+1 day DUB
The A330 that will operate this route will offer 23 Business Class seats and 243 Economy Class seats with the following cabin layout (courtesy of SeatGuru):
Click To Enlarge
The prime Business Class seats in this configuration are the starboard window seats in rows 3 and 5. These are the “throne” seats and offer considerably more storage space than the window seats on the port side of the aircraft (they’re very similar in set up to the Malaysia Airlines A330 seat I reviewed here)
Aer Lingus A330 Business Class
In Economy Class things don’t look too great with seats just 17″ wide and with a cramped 31″ of legroom – welcome to the modern transatlantic reality!
The biggest benefit I can see from this route will come to those looking to book transatlantic awards without paying ridiculous surcharges (like you’ll find on British Airways). Despite the fact that Aer Lingus is owned by the same parent company that owns British Airways (IAG) the Irish airline doesn’t levy huge surcharges on its awards…even when you’re booking using Avios.
Yes, you’ll still need a lot more Avios to fly Business Class to Seattle than you would, for example, United Miles but if Avios is all you’ve got then the low surcharges are at least a little bit of a relief.
Bottom Line
Any routes to/from Europe that give flyers a low-tax award redemption option are a very good thing so it’s nice to see Aer Lingus launching yet another route across the Atlantic.
With Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferring over to both United Mileage Plus and Aer Lingus and with Ultimate Rewards and Amex Membership Rewards transferring over to British Airways Avios, pulling together enough points for a transatlantic award to Seattle shouldn’t be an issue….that’s if award availability actually becomes available.
[…] Aer Lingus will launch Seattle – Dublin in May use United Airlines miles or British Airways Avios. […]