Aer Lingus has increased capacity on its daily Manchester to New York services, which will now operate on an Airbus A330 aircraft for the first time.
The switch to the wide-body aircraft will increase available seat capacity on each flight by 72% over the upcoming summer season.
The move comes just over a year after the airline began its very first direct transatlantic flights to New York from its then new North of England hub, which initially operated on a single-aisle Airbus A321LR.
Replacing the A321LR with a larger twin-aisled Airbus A330s enables them to redeploy their A321LR aircraft onto its transatlantic routes from Dublin, including to Hartford, which launched last month, as well as Dublin to Cleveland, which takes off in May.
Previously, the A321LR offered 184 daily departing seats from Manchester to JFK, but from today, that number will rise to 317 – 71% more seats available in Economy, (up by 119 to 287) – and an 88% increase in fully lie-flat Business Class seats (up by 14 to 30).
Customers can choose from 270,000 seats on sale from Manchester to the US, with Aer Lingus’ biggest summer schedule yet, thanks to bigger aircraft and the extra capacity on its transatlantic routes
The success of Aer Lingus’ Manchester based operations has contributed towards its ambitious network expansion, offering yet more choice of routes and destinations from the north of the UK.
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This summer, Aer Lingus will fly daily and direct from Manchester to New York JFK and to Orlando in North America, with seasonal winter services to Barbados due to restart in November.
Its three transatlantic services complement the carrier’s daily services from Manchester to Dublin (up to six a day), with seamless onward connections to 13 transatlantic routes, via quick and easy pre-clearance facilities at their Dublin Hub.
A long history with Manchester
Aer Lingus boasts a long relationship with England’s ‘Gateway to the North.’ The Irish carrier first began operating flights from Manchester Airport in 1939, with a route between Manchester and Dublin.
The service was initially operated using a four-seater de Havilland Dragon Rapide aircraft, and it marked the beginning of Aer Lingus’ expansion into the UK market.
Over the years, Aer Lingus continued to expand its operations out of Manchester, adding new routes and increasing the frequency of its flights to destinations throughout Europe and beyond.
Aer Lingus started operating international flights from Manchester in 1946, with a route to Amsterdam. This was followed by flights to Brussels, Paris, and other European cities in the years that followed.
The addition of these European routes helped to establish Aer Lingus as a major airline in the UK market and laid the foundation for the airline’s expansion into intercontinental routes in the decades that followed.
Aer Lingus launched its inaugural flight to the USA from Manchester in December 2021. The carrier started operating a direct service between Manchester and John F. Kennedy International Airport using the Airbus A321LR aircraft.
The addition of the Manchester-New York route was part of Aer Lingus’ strategy to expand its transatlantic network and tap into the growing demand for long-haul travel from regional airports in the UK.
