Irish airlines Aer Lingus is launching a new four times weekly, year-round direct service to Seattle from Dublin Airport.
The new Seattle service will have onward connections from Dublin to 24 other cities including Berlin, Edinburgh, Brussels and Hamburg. Seattle will be Aer Lingus’ third city on the west coast of the US with direct flights from Dublin, the other direct services being to San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Commenting on the new service, Dublin Airport Managing Director Vincent Harrison said, ‘This is Aer Lingus’ 13th transatlantic route from Dublin Airport and its tenth new transatlantic route in the past four years. I have no doubt Seattle will be a popular destination for both business and leisure passengers and will further boost trade and travel between Ireland and the US.’
‘Dublin Airport’s transatlantic traffic has doubled in the past five years and Dublin is now the fifth largest airport in Europe for North American connectivity after Heathrow, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam,’ added Harrison.
Passengers travelling on Aer Lingus’ new service to Seattle will use US Pre Clearance facilities at Dublin, enabling them to save time on arrival in the US by completing all the necessary immigration and customs checks prior to departure. A pre cleared passenger will be able skip all queues on arrival in the US airport.
The new service to Seattle is one of five new long-haul routes being launched by Aer Lingus this year. The Irish airline has already launched a new direct service to Philadelphia in March, Air Canada will operate flights to Montreal, Cathay Pacific will launch a new direct route to Hong Kong and Hainan Airlines will start direct services to Beijing.
This summer season Dublin Airport will have flights to 195 destinations in 42 countries, operated by 56 airlines, the airport said. More than 8.7 million passengers have travelled through Dublin Airport in the first four months of this year.
