Aer Lingus is a strange beast. It’s owned by the same company as British Airways and Iberia, and it’s part of the transatlantic joint venture that includes American Airlines and Finnair. However,
- It isn’t a member of the oneworld alliance
- You can’t earn or redeem miles via American AAdvantage
- You can earn and redeem miles with United MileagePlus!
The Irish carrier often offers inexpensive business class hops across the Pond, connecting to single cabin service in Europe. It has a codeshare partnership with American’s partner JetBlue, so they’ve sold tickets for onward connections at JFK on JetBlue. It was convenient, then, to have Aer Lingus in JFK terminal 5 co-located with JetBlue. With U.S. immigration pre-clearance in Ireland you get off the flight in New York as though it were domestic, and don’t even need to clear security to connect.
That’s going away, since starting April 27 Aer Lingus will be moving to JFK’s terminal 7 which means changing terminals for connections to JetBlue and therefore also re-clearing security.
This is only a temporary home for Aer Lingus, since terminal 7 is slated to be demolished in three years.
What’s perhaps interesting is what this means for airline lounges.
- Aer Lingus will use the former British Airways Concorde Room space in terminal 7 (minus of course things like good champagne and preflight dining)
- Aer Lingus operated its own lounge in terminal 5 – the only lounge in the terminal, so there’s now available lounge space which JetBlue could scoop up for Mint passengers (currently JetBlue offers no lounge for premium cabin passengers)
By all rights Aer Lingus should operate from American’s terminal 8 with British Airways, and at a minimum operate as a frequent flyer partner of American AAdvantage – the8y are already joint venture partners.
(HT: Head for Points)
Why is this happening?
@Tom – JetBlue probably needs the gates, Aer Lingus’s lease probably expired, and JetBlue told Aer Lingust to get out. That’s usually the way these things work. That would be my guess
JetBlue wants the gates and lounge that Aer Lingus occupies. The two airlines couldn’t come to an agreement and the carrier who doesn’t own a terminal is getting the boot.
Why not terminal 8 with the other IAG airlines? Because AA, who owns and operates T8, doesn’t have the space. They’re already at capacity, with some international partners having to wait up to an hour for a gate after aircraft arrive.
We should likely expect the same to occur in BOS as soon as the gate leases expire there as well, right? The A330s take up quite a bit of space at B6’s C gates in BOS.
Not entirely true that its single class of service in Europe either as the AerSpace fare on the A321neo morning rotation to LHR & CDG are business class in everything except name.
It is an unfortunate move. T7 is generally a dump and indeed slated for demolition once the first phase of the new T6 complex is completed (phase 2 will be built on the footprint of the T7). It is currently being used by the airlines that remained there since BA decamped in December (Alaska, Icelandair, Aerolineas, LOT Polish, ANA, etc…) and a few other airlines (Kuwait for instance) have moved there and out of T4 since.
Given that DUB is effectively LHR’s third runway and will be for the foreseeable future, it seems weird that EI and BA/IB aren’t fully integrated. Perhaps there is no room at T8 for a further carrier (QF will be resuming service in June and JL is supposed to move over in May), but from a cost perspective, it would stand to reason that EI were rolled up into the BA cost structure at JFK, but perhaps BA is still making payments on T7 assets even though the lease was supposedly up in 2022 which is what prompted the move to T8.
@Gary — The question of “which terminal is what airline” RARELY makes any sense to me whatsoever. Let’s look at JFK and oneworld (and ignore the fact that T7@JFK is scheduled to be torn down.). American and British Airways are in T8, along with Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Qatar, and Royal Jordanian. Alaska, OTOH, is in T7, JAL is in T1 (but ANA is in T7), and while Royal Air Maroc might arrive at T8, they depart from T1. And Condor and Icelandair — both of which are “earn and burn” partners with Alaska, are in T7.
Meanwhile at SFO, Alaska, which shared T2 with American, now shares it with rival Delta and American is in T1. LAX, ORD, and most every other US airport is just as confusing with regard to alliance and/or codeshare partner airlines.
This happened with Hawaiian I think about a year ago as well. They went from T5 to T4 so connecting B6 passengers need to reclear security. I actually have a flight HNL-JFK-MCO on HA/B6 and will need to do this. I wish there was a shuttle of some sorts so we don’t have to catch the airtrain to T5 and go through security again, but was told “no”. Ugh.
@Jason Not for long.
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/Routes-Alaska-plans-big-move-at-SFO-17026414.php
I thought EI would join Oneworld soon as a full member. Seems like a move to T8 would make more sense. Or maybe that’s down the road?