Spring break to Europe! Part 2: Aer Lingus across the Irish Sea

It’s very uncommon that my second post from a trip is the beginning of the return trip to the United States.  But that’s the situation we find ourselves in with this next report.  I spent about a week in Europe, but there wasn’t a lot to report on for this blog.  

To get from London to Paris, I took the Eurostar train in standard class.  I had intended to write a review of that trip, but I couldn’t really come up with anything to write about.  I went through security, sat on a bench, got on the train, sat there for 2 hours, and then got off.  

My hotel in Paris was unremarkable, and then to get from Paris to Manchester, I flew Easyjet.  I also considered writing a review of my Easyjet flight, but, once again, there wasn’t anything for me to take pictures of.  The Easyjet area of Terminal 2 at CDG really has nothing once you clear exit passport control.

So that brings us to this next flight: Manchester to Dublin on Aer Lingus.  This flight was also extremely unremarkable, but luckily this time around, I had access to both the Aspire and Escape lounges in Manchester through Priority Pass.  That meant that I’d at least have enough pictures to write something!

I booked my flight from Manchester to Dublin on a separate ticket from my flight back to the US (Dublin to San Francisco).  Booking separate flights was necessary in order to save over $2 000 on a Business Class ticket.  As a result of my “self-connection”, the agent in Manchester wasn’t able to check my suitcase through to San Francisco.  They should have been able to, but Aer Lingus staff are not really known for being the most helpful, and Manchester Airport staff are notoriously terrible.  In anticipation of this happening, I had booked a long layover, so it wasn’t a problem.

After checking my bag to Dublin, I headed through the (dreaded) Manchester security.  It was as slow as ever, but at least I cleared without any problems.  I then made my way directly to the Aspire lounge.  

The Aspire lounge was not too crowded at about 6 am, and luckily, they had a build-your-own full English breakfast bar ready to go.

Along with a yogurt and cereal station.

I selected a bit of each because I hadn’t eaten anything before I left, and this would be my last chance to eat for several hours. I also do really like British beans.

And I had plenty of space to spread out:

When it was almost time to board, I made my way to the gate.  I gave myself a bit more time than I usually would have because I simply do not trust Manchester Airport.  I arrived toward the end of “boarding” because it was the “scan your boarding pass and then sit in a holding cell” type of boarding, and the flight was not very full.  

For flights between the UK and Ireland, the UK treats them like domestic flights and tracks your biometrics, which meant that I had to have my picture cross-compared with a picture taken of me at security.  That also means that you have to use the exact same ticket both times (i.e. paper + paper or phone mobile ticket + phone mobile ticket). If you mix and match, it doesn’t work.  Not a problem for me, but others had issues with it.

Upon boarding, I took my seat: 2C.  I actually had the entire row to myself, which was great. Row 1 is reserved for “AerSpace”, which is Aer Lingus’ intra-European “Business Class” option.  On standard (non-internationally equipped) aircraft, it consists of just row 1 with an empty middle seat.  It doesn’t come with any of the standard features of European Business Class, except for the blocked middle seat and a single free drink and a single free snack from the standard menu.

I don’t know what the upgrade would’ve cost for my short flight across the Irish Sea because it was sold out by the time I booked.  But looking at it, it wouldn’t’ve really been worth much unless it came free with my intercontinental business class flight (which I imagine is its major use case).

Boarding ended quite quickly, but the door didn’t close immediately because some people were “having problems with their biometrics” at the boarding gate.  We still ended up pushing back in time to arrive a few minutes early into Dublin.

The entire cabin looked extremely basic, but the competitive landscape in Europe means that it’s very rare to refresh the cabins because prices are so low and profit margins so small.

Once we pushed back and took to the sky, the in-flight service began. Said service was very quick and efficient because everything was for sale, rather than included, so the cabin crew were able to wheel the cart relatively quickly. Though there wasn’t much to mention in terms of service, the crew were very friendly and peppy, which was great.

It was really a very short flight, and before I knew it, we had arrived into Dublin.

In summary, this flight was extremely basic but was all I needed to get to Dublin to take the more interesting flight.  The ground experience at Manchester Airport was actually better than expected, but I have exceptionally low expectations for Manchester Airport, so that is to say that it was just “ok” for any other airport (2/5).  The seat on this flight was just ok, but at least I had a set of three to myself (3/5).  The crew was actually very upbeat and friendly for how short this flight was (4/5), but with there being no IFE or WiFi at all (0/5) and only buy-on-board items (1/5), there really wasn’t a lot this flight offered beyond transportation from A to B.  Overall, the flight gets a 10/25, which is not great, but that’s the nature of low cost short flights within Europe.

I paid just under $110 for this flight and attached my American Airlines number to it.  Apparently, whatever fare code it had booked into doesn’t earn any AA miles.  I don’t really know what benefits exactly I got from having AA status, but here we are.