BHX to DUB Aer Lingus Economy

Airline:  Aer Lingus

Flight #: EI263

Route:    BHX-DUB

Class:    Economy

Seat:     21A

Date:     Wednesday 20^th March 2024

Back in March Beth and I were fortunate enough to both have a Wednesday off work together and rather than wasting the day just pottering about at home, we decided to go on an adventure! As such we left the house at some ridiculously early hour and, at just before half past six, we were pulling into one of the car parks at Birmingham Airport ready to fly to Dublin.

With the early start we’d decided to pay a bit extra to park in one of the car parks within walking distance of the terminal and so just six minutes after parking we were at check-in. Unfortunately, Aer Lingus doesn’t have any self-service check-in machines at Birmingham and so we joined the queue to be seen at one of the three check-in desks allocated to the flight. Thankfully the staff at the desks were on the ball and it was less than 10 minutes until we had our boarding cards (and the ones for our return flight?!?) in hand.

As with all UK airports, Birmingham is currently upgrading its security area to allow for new scanners which will eventually remove the need for liquids or electronics to be removed from hand luggage and also remove the 100ml limit on liquids. As such, Birmingham airport was unfortunately a building site and the security could be described, at best, as chaotic. Since we travelled I’ve seen horror stories online about security queues snaking outside and thankfully during our visit it wasn’t that bad, however it did take us half an hour to pass through the checks.

With security having taken longer than expected, we didn’t really have time to make a visit to the lounge worthwhile and so headed to Pret to grab some breakfast and wait out the half an hour or so before boarding would begin. In fact we didn’t even have to wait that long, with us having made it through security at 0715 and the gate being announce 25 minutes later at 0740. Fuelled up with coffee (or hot chocolate in Beth’s case) and breakfast, we headed to gate 42 ready to properly start our adventure to the Emerald Isle.

EI-DEH was our aircraft for the short flight over the Irish Sea and this Airbus A320-200 was delivered brand new to Aer Lingus back in October 2004. Having travelled a lot on European short haul flights recently, I’ve become used to the minimum comfort ‘streamlined’ seats and so was pleasantly surprised to find that Aer Lingus had opted for a bit more padding. However, they have saved the few grams per seat of weight by getting rid of seat back pockets, meaning there’s no-where to safely put your belongings once you’ve removed them from your hand luggage.

Our scheduled departure time was 0815 and as we settled into seats 21A and B, boarding was completed at 0808. Pushback started five minutes later and we began to taxi at 0817, with me being able to see a Magma Aviation Boeing 747 parked on the north side of the airport as we taxied. At 0822 we took off from Birmingham’s runway 15 straight into a bank of cloud as we began what the captain had advised would be a 40 minute flight to the Irish capital.

Surprisingly, despite the flight being so short, the crew managed to complete an onboard service, although I’m not sure how many people actually bought something given the speed they passed down the aisle. There’s no menu or inflight magazine available onboard, but these can be accessed via the Aer Lingus app if you’ve downloaded it before departure. We didn’t purchase anything but I did have a look at the menu and there was a reasonable choice offered for the short flight. I think I said similar when I discovered this on Ryanair, but this isn’t a particularly accessible way of advertising what is available as not everyone will have the app downloaded and there’s no notice given prior to departure.

With the lack on an inflight magazine to flick through, I settled down to read some of Gerard Fiennes’ ‘I tried to Run a Railway’ which is a great book that I’ve read a few times now. I didn’t get too much reading done though as 41 minutes after taking off from Birmingham, we landed on Dublin’s runway 28L at 0903. Unfortunately, despite our early arrival into the Dublin, it took a while for us to actually make it to the terminal as we first taxied to seemingly the furthest stand from the runway, before then having to wait for the 3^rd bus to take us to arrivals. We eventually stepped foot in the terminal at 0934, more than half an hour after landing.

It seemed that our trip to Dublin was cursed to start with faffing and chaos, as after the delays at Birmingham security and getting to the terminal in Dublin, we also managed to completely mess up getting a bus to the city. The 747 and 757 buses that used to be included in the Leap card have stopped running and by the time we’d realised this, we didn’t manage to get on a coach to the city centre until 1024.

Whilst the flight itself was pleasant and comfortable, the experiences at the airports either end were unfortunately frustrating and stressful. Obviously I don’t hold Aer Lingus responsible for the changes to Dublin airport’s bus network and I can’t really blame them for Birmingham Airport’s building works, however the arrival experience at Dublin was entirely their own doing. Having to wait 20 minutes from pulling on stand to eventually getting on a bus to the terminal is not great, especially when Aer Lingus do their own ground handling at Dublin.

Lounge              0*

Seat/Facilities     3*

Food                3*

Service             3*

Punctuality         5*

Overall Rating      14/25 (read about my rating system here!)