DUB to BHX Aer Lingus Economy

Airline:  Aer Lingus

Flight #: EI276

Route:    DUB-BHX

Class:    Economy

Seat:     22A

Date:     Wednesday 20^th March 2024

Having had a mostly enjoyable day exploring the Irish capital, it was time to head back across the Irish Sea to Birmingham and, as with the flight out, we were flying with the Irish flag carrier, Aer Lingus. We’d be flying from Dublin’s newer terminal, Terminal 2, which is home to Aer Lingus, its IAG Group partners, Emirates and the contingent of US Airlines that serve Dublin. You can read about our exploration of Dublin and the flight out here and here.

After the Dublin traffic caused issues with us getting a bus from the city centre, we arrived back at the airport at around 1700. Somehow, we’d checked in for both our outbound and return flights at Birmingham in the morning (I’m still not sure how) and so with our boarding cards already in hand we headed straight for security. Now, I don’t know how Dublin security is throughout the year, but on our visit it was a breeze and the complete opposite of the experience we’d had at Birmingham on the way out.

Dublin Airport has the new generation of security scanners in place meaning that liquids or electronics no longer need to be removed from hand luggage prior to them going through the scanners. This is great and a much-needed improvement, although after however many years of passengers getting used to removing things, it would be useful if it was better advertised that this was now the case. Unfortunately, passengers were only really being advised when they started to remove items at the security lanes, leading to delays in the process.

Making it through to the departure lounge, we had around 45 minutes until our gate would be announced, so enough time for some food but not really long enough to make a lounge visit worthwhile. Heading instead for the pub/bar ‘The Fallow’ we grabbed a table with a view of some of the stands and settled down for the traditional Irish meal of burger and chips… Whilst not the most exciting meal in the world it was pretty good and certainly filled the hole that a day exploring Dublin had created.

The aircraft operating our flight to Birmingham was EI-DVE, a 17-year-old Airbus A320-200 that has operated for Aer Lingus since it was delivered new in May 2007. As we ate our dinner, the aircraft arrived into Dublin on a flight from Manchester and parked on the stand adjacent to where we were seated, allowing me to grab some photos ahead of the flight. Whilst most of the Aer Lingus fleet has been repainted into the new 2019 colour scheme, EI-DVE was still wearing the 1996 ‘green top’ livery and it was nice to be able to get some photos of this again.

About an hour before departure, our gate was published on the Aer Lingus app and so we made the five-minute walk to Gate 407. Boarding started just a couple of minutes after we got there and, managing to get to the front of the ‘general queue’, it wasn’t long before we were onboard and settling into seats 22A and B. Unfortunately, whilst we boarded fairly quickly, the boarding process as a whole seemed to take quite a while.

Onboard it was pretty much the same as the flight out with reasonably decent seats, although these ones did have seat back pockets giving me somewhere to put my headphone case during the flight. Eventually the boarding process was completed and at 1842 we pushed back from the gate, with our taxi to the runway beginning seven minutes later at 1849. We would be departing from Dublin’s newest runway, 10L/28R, which opened in August 2022 and significantly increased capacity at the airport whilst also providing an additional runway length of almost 500m.

As we waited to line up on runway 28R, Lufthansa’s D-AIUP took off ahead of us on LH981 to Frankfurt, an airport I’ve flown through a couple of times over the years. Once D-AIUP was on its take-off roll, we lined up on the runway and at 1858 took off for the short flight to Birmingham. After take-off we had an immediate 180° right turn to take us out over Swords and towards the Irish sea, with us crossing the coast just 4 minutes later.

The Irish Sea was crossed in less than 10 minutes and we were soon crossing over Anglesey and north-west Wales before turning to head south-east over Wrexham, Wolverhampton and Birmingham itself. Our cruising altitude for the flight was only 23,000 feet and we were only flying at this for six minutes before we began our initial descent just before Wrexham. After flying over Birmingham, we made another 180° turn just before Leamington Spa to line up with the approach for runway 33, landing at 1936 after a flight of just 38 minutes.

Once again this was a very short flight to review, but Aer Lingus and their crew did well to delivery a relaxing journey and also offering an onboard service to those who wanted it. This flight was also bookended by much better experiences at Dublin and Birmingham, so all in all was a good end to a long day.

Lounge              0*

Seat/Facilities     3*

Food                3*

Service             5*

Punctuality         5*

Overall Rating      16/25 (read about my rating system here!)