dailynewsnblog
Aer Lingus Now Serves Pittsburgh
Aer Lingus operated its inaugural flight from Dublin Airport to Pittsburgh on Monday, May 25. Numbered as EI81, Simple Flying’s tracking datashows that this first service took seven hours and 21 minutes, departing at 4:19 PM and landing bang on time at 6:40 PM. The inaugural return, EI80, departed at 8:40 PM and touched back down in Dublin at 8:00 AM on the next morning.
Aer Lingus plans to serve this new route year-round, with a total of 124 departures from Dublin scheduled between May 25 and the end of 2026. These flights will operate four times a week using the Irish flag carrier’s Airbus A321LR narrowbody twinjets, with monthly totals of between 16 and 18 rotations. Reid Moody, Aer Lingus’ Chief Strategy & Planning Officer, said the new route will allow for “seamless connections” for its passengers.
“Our new service to Pittsburgh brings Aer Lingus’ North American network to 24 routes from Ireland. This route strengthens our Dublin Hub and provides seamless connections between North America, Ireland, the UK, and Europe.”
Two More European Connections
As previously noted, Aer Lingus is now one of three European airlines serving PIT nonstop on long-haul flights. Icelandair is another that favors the use of narrowbody twinjets to the ‘City of Bridges,’ with the carrier’s Boeing 737 MAX 8s flying there from its main hub at Reykjavík Keflavík International Airport (KEF). However, this route only operates seasonally.
Indeed, these 160-seat single-aisle aircraft will be operating on this route from May to October, with a total of 82 rotations. In contrast, Pittsburgh’s third and final current long-haul airline, 
British Airways (BA), serves the city year-round, with 294 round-trip flights planned from its main hub at London Heathrow Airport (LHR). BA is also Pittsburgh’s only long-haul operator that uses widebodies.
Indeed, the oneworld founding member and UK flag carrier favors jets from the twin-aisle Boeing 787 Dreamliner family on this route. It is famous for operating all three variants of the series, and indeed, all three will be used between London and Pittsburgh this year. The small 787-8 is by far the dominant variant, accounting for 230 of the rotations, while the 787-9 has 45 and the large 787-10 has just 19.
Which Airlines Operate All 3 Variants Of The Boeing 787 Dreamliner?
Only three airlines worldwide operates each variant of the Boeing 787.
Pittsburgh Last Had Three Long-Haul Routes In 2019
It has been seven years since there were three different long-haul routes and airlines on the roster at Pittsburgh International. Back in 2019, things looked rather different, with BA as the only one of today’s long-haul operators to serve the ‘Steel City’ then. That year, BA operated 156 rotations between London and Pittsburgh from April to December, flying four times a week.
Pittsburgh still had nonstop flights to Reykjavík Keflavík back in 2019, but they were not operated by Icelandair. Indeed, purple-clad budget carrier WOW Air was the custodian of the route back then, with just six rotations scheduled in January 2019 using its Airbus narrowbodies. Meanwhile, German carrier Condor flew its 767 widebodies from Frankfurt Airport (FRA) to Pittsburgh 32 times from May to September.
