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Aer Lingus scraps flights from Manchester to Boston – before they even launch

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Aer Lingus published its transatlantic plans for Summer 2022 yesterday.

The biggest news for UK readers is that the planned service from Manchester to Boston will not now launch next Summer.

There is no change to the existing services from Manchester to Barbados (operates October to March), New York and Orlando.

Aer Lingus drops Boston to Manchester

The reason for this is that the airline is restarting transatlantic flights from Shannon. This is a surprising move, given that the airline generated a lot of bad publicity for itself when it pulled out of the airport last year.

Shannon will see daily flights to both Boston and New York.

A very full Dublin schedule has also been announced. Most of the pre-pandemic routes return, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York (JFK and Newark), Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto and Washington.

The routes which are not returning are Hartford, Miami and Minneapolis. There is also no sign of the Montreal route which was ready to launch before covid hit.

Remember that you can clear US immigration in Dublin and Shannon, which means that you land as a domestic passenger and walk straight out of the airport. This could be very attractive if US immigration grinds to a halt at major airports as agents try to verify covid documentation.

Our guide to redeeming Avios on Aer Lingus is here.

It is a good choice – taxes are far lower than redeeming on British Airways and the business class seat is better than Club World, if not Club Suite. Redeeming is messy, however, as our guide explains. You can either redeem online at avios.com and pay higher taxes, or telephone British Airways and pay less tax. The snag is that if you book via BA you have access to different availability and you cannot check it in advance of calling.

The full Aer Lingus announcement on its Summer 2022 plans is here.

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

Aer Lingus and AerClub

Comments (29)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Nigerian Prince says:
    29 Oct29 October 06:06

    If IHG status extension happens, will status from creation black card be extended as well, given many creation black card will be cancelled in December

    • Steve says:
      29 Oct29 October 08:54

      Are creation black cards being discontinued?

    • ianM says:
      29 Oct29 October 11:48

      I think if your card is being cancelled for being a naughty boy you will lose your IHG status.
      But given it’s not worth anything anyway who cares??

  • Dominic says:
    29 Oct29 October 07:12

    Excellent, all 3 of my statuses now extended for another year 👍🏼

    Unlikely I can maintain 3 chains going forwards – guess I’ll need to pick a favourite..

  • DanLondon says:
    29 Oct29 October 07:23

    Oh that would be great news re: IHG extension. I am a tiny bit short as I forgot to use my creation card during much of this year and had fewer hotel trips than usual due to covid and will therefore likely miss out on retaining my status by a few thousand points. Hope they let us know soon!

  • David says:
    29 Oct29 October 07:35

    IHG have been tardy and ungenerous compared with others in terms of extending status and free nights. Although my 2019/20 Ambassador membership was extended by 6 months this expired in March this year which was pretty useless and I lost my free weekend night benefit. I have managed to keep Spire this year, mainly based on credit card spend, but am increasingly feeling that I will focus on maintaining my Hilton Diamond status in future years.

  • Simon says:
    29 Oct29 October 08:06

    Has anyone made any progress with complaints to Creation? I am waiting for a reply to a follow up query to them confirming they are sticking to their no refund position so that I can take them to FOS. But even by Creation’s standards they’ve gone quiet.

  • Anna says:
    29 Oct29 October 08:13

    Shame about MAN-BOS, hope they don’t drop the other routes. I would have thought there was demand for direct flights to MIA also, either from MAN or DUB, given Florida is such a huge holiday destination in normal times.

    • PGW says:
      29 Oct29 October 08:48

      AA tried MAN-BOS & MAN-MIA several years ago. The BOS service did last for a good number of years but MAN-MIA was very short lived. I used the BOS service quite regularly and it was a pleasure to have such a short crossing especially eastbound. MIA never took off and on the few occasions I used it it was barely half full which was nice for passengers but obviously not for AA. As long as Aer Lingus retain the JFK route BOS does look a little unnecessary.

  • Nick M says:
    29 Oct29 October 08:48

    For the Radisson and IHG extensions is this just for status or for point expiry too?

    • Andrew says:
      29 Oct29 October 09:18

      As long as your account is active, IHG points don’t expire.

      • Rui N. says:
        29 Oct29 October 10:11

        But for that you need to have transactions every 12 months. (Don’t know if you can just book and cancel a reward stay)

  • Nick says:
    29 Oct29 October 09:05

    Will be interesting to see what the Irish government says about this. The ‘triple M’ routes were all part of the ‘we’ll expand routes’ promise IAG made to them to smooth the takeover… they can obviously rest on the ‘covid innit’ excuse for a while, but if they only go back to the old-style network in the long term then the govt could make life very difficult for them.

    • Kevin D says:
      29 Oct29 October 23:55

      Yep. But covid has changed the aviation world for years. Anything goes. If EI think MAN-BOS won’t make money then drop it. Simple as that. Airlines have lost enough money this past 18 months. Any new route is a gamble. Better to double down on what they know works.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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