Ireland’s Aer Lingus continues to expand its transatlantic network with the announcement of Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul. This will bring the number of routes across the pond to 18.
Very shortly after the announcement, Delta Air Lines chimed in with some direct competition of their own. This is sure to keep fares very competitive.
Aer Lingus Start Next Year
First cab off the rank are the flights from Dublin to Minneapolis, which start on 29 April 2024. Flights will leave Dublin as EI89 at 14:20, landing in the USA at 16:55. Return flights will operate as EI88, leaving Minnesota at 18:45 and landing back in Ireland at 08:25.
Initially services will be operated by the A330-200 four times each week, but will switch to the new Airbus A321XLR from Winter 2024. Daily services will happen from October.
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- The Aer Lingus Airbus A321 cabin is comfortable!
Meanwhile, Denver will see four times weekly services on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from 17 May 2024. These will also be operated by the Airbus A330-200.
EI59 will leave Dublin at 16:15 daily, landing at 19:00 in Denver. Return services will leave Colorado at 20:45, landing back in the Republic of Ireland at 12 midday the following day.
Delta Also Starts Minneapolis to Dublin!
Right after Aer Lingus announced their services, Delta Air Lines decided to also start serving the Minneapolis to Dublin route. They are coming in from 9 May 2024, just a couple of weeks after the Irish airline, with services five times per week.
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- An oldie but a goodie, the Delta 767.
DL114 will leave Minneapolis-St. Paul at 21:20 and land in Dublin at 10:50 the next morning. Return flights leave the Irish capital at 12 midday, landing back in Minnesota at 14:25. The venerable Boeing 767-300ER will operate these services.
Overall Thoughts
The game’s afoot on the DUB-MSP-DUB route with both Aer Lingus and Delta deciding to start flights at almost the same time. Pricing will be interesting, as each will be competing for passengers on the route.
Denver was the largest unserved route from Dublin, so it makes sense that Aer Lingus start flying it. Looks like there are plenty more interesting options to get Stateside now.
What do you think of the new routes? Who will do better on Minneapolis-St. Paul to Dublin? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image via Airport Spotting.
Delta 767 by Lasse Fuss via Wikimedia Commons.
Hey Aer Lingus! We here in STL are enjoying and supporting our 3x weekly LH service to FRA. How about 4x weekly to DUB so we can have daily service to Europe? No one here is going to launch a competing spite service.
Hahaha! Hope they’re listening. I also saw a few people saying “Las Vegas next!” – so we’ll see what happens.
I’m getting the impression that Delta is acting like a schoolyard bully here. They had plenty of chances to introduce this service before but only did so when someone else did and they no longer needed to do so. Aer Lingus is clearly no threat to Delta’s hub so the only reason I can see to do this is malice.
You’d hope they put as much planning into it and that it happened to be a coincidence. Either way, it should ensure fares are at price gouging levels. It’ll be an interesting one to watch!