Air Lingus A330 touches down at SFO on Weds, April 2 (Photo: Aer Lingus)
Storm clouds parted for the arrival of Aer Lingus’ distinctive big green plane from Dublin on Wednesday afternoon.
This is the first time the Irish flag carrier has touched down at San Francisco International since departing during the dark recessionary days of 2009.
Here’s what you need to know:
>Aer Lingus operates a 267-seat Airbus A330-200 on the SFO-DUB route. There are 24 business class and 243 economy class seats (no first class). The flight, which will operate five days a week, departs for Dublin at 5:20 pm and returns to SFO at 3:20 pm. The flight takes 10-11 hours depending on direction and winds…it’s the longest flight in the Aer Lingus route network of 70 cities.
>At the moment, fares on Aer Lingus’ SFO-DUB nonstops are looking about standard for June flights. Business class on the nonstop flights is running about $5,500 roundtrip and economy is running from a low of around $950 to a high of about $1300 round trip. (You’ll find cheaper fares in both business and economy on one-stop flights from competitors.)
Currently, business class seats on Aer Lingus are “angled lie flat”
>Business class seats on Air Lingus are angled lie-flat vs the more comfortable true-lie flight (horizontal) favored by frequent travelers. At an airport reception for the flight yesterday, I asked CEO Christoph Mueller about this, and he broke some good news: Since the San Francisco-Dublin route is the carrier’s longest flight, it will be the first route to get new true-lie-flat seats (from Thompson) in business class later this year. SEE UPDATE 2.2105
>Currently, there are power ports in every first class seat, and every other economy seat and the plane offers satellite based wi-fi. Each business and economy seat has its own seatback video screen with a wide selection of movies, shows and games. Aer Lingus offers a unique bidding process for upgrades to business class. Details here.
>Having a new nonstop on SFO-DUB should be music to the ears of execs from Bay Area tech companies like Facebook, Google and LinkedIn who will likely be flying to/from their European headquarters in Dublin. The Irish Examiner reports, “There are 179 companies employing more than 36,000 people in Ireland from the West Coast of the US. These companies are primarily based in the technology and digital media sectors.”
>Aer Lingus is not a member of the Star Alliance, Oneworld or SkyTeam. However, it is a United code share partner. But the SFO-DUB route is not a route where the carriers share a code. Nonetheless, due to the partnership, United Mileage Plus members can earn miles on Aer Lingus flights… but there are limits based on fare paid. Business class fares earn 150% of base miles flown, but economy fares earn just 50%-75% of base miles. Many of the lowest fares do not earn miles at all. You can redeem 60,000 MileagePlus miles for economy round trips on Aer Lingus, or 140,000 for business class. Details here. In my conversation with CEO Mueller, he said that the carrier is working on boosting its frequent flyer program, but did not offer any other specifics.
>One of the best things about flying Aer Lingus is that passengers pre-clear US customs and immigration in Dublin before boarding the plane. That means when you land at SFO, it’s just like a domestic flight… you can hit the ground running as soon as you touch down. Aer Lingus currently flies into the international terminal (Boarding Area G).
Flew Aer Lingus 747-200 from JFK to Shannon back in Sept 84……so smooth was the night flight and landing at Shannon at about 6 in the morn, everyone applauded after touchdown. When they flew the first time to SFO they were in Boarding Area A with many of the other European carriers, and the green plane could be easily seen from 101. Canada also clears US bound passengers.
Ron’s point is that putting customs clearance on the arrival end means that you waste no more time than it actually takes. Putting it on the departure end means that you need to arrive early enough for the worst-case scenario. If it might sometimes take an hour, even with Global Entry, you need to arrive an extra hour early, even if it usually only takes 20 minutes. So you waste more time.
Great to see the Green Shamrock back at SFO. Even though they do not code share with UA, Passengers arriving into SFO can connect to UA. EY, a share holder of EI, is code sharing with them on this route.
Look forward to taking this flight this summer.
Hey Ron: You can use your Global Entry in Dublin, too.http://www.cbp.gov/global-entry/locations — chris
I’m not so sure that pre-clearance in Dublin is such a great idea (especially for travelers with Global Entry.) Without pre-clearance, if I fly into SFO and clearing immigration and customs takes 20 minutes, I will spend exactly 20 minutes clearing immigration and customs. On the other hand, with pre-clesrance, I would likely leave at least an hour for pre-clearance in Dublin – and if it only took me 20 minutes to clear, I would have gotten to the airport 40 minute earlier than needed.