Up to five daily transatlantic flights are set to touch down at Raleigh–Durham International Airport by April next year, as yet another European operator has signaled its intentions to serve the North Carolina airport. Aer Lingus, the flag carrier of Ireland, will deploy its Airbus A321XLR on the route, direct from Dublin International Airport, from April 13.
Already, four other European carriers serve Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), including British Airways, Air France, Icelandair, and Lufthansa, all of which operate multiple weekly flights. British Airways and Air France are the only carriers that serve the airport daily, while the other two currently maintain five weekly flights.
Five European Airlines At Raleigh
As published this week, Aer Lingus will operate a new route from Dublin Airport to Raleigh from April 13, 2026. The route, which will be served five times a week, will be operated by the carriers capable of operating the Airbus A321XLR, a perfect aircraft to serve niche routes, given its modest capacity but long-range capabilities. A benefit for travelers transiting or departing from Dublin for the United States is that all passengers can make the most of US Preclearance on Irish soil, allowing them to arrive as domestic passengers.
Aer Lingus’ new service will be one of two airlines operating narrow-body transatlantic services to the North Carolina airport, with the A321XLR accommodating a total of 184 passengers. This is compared to Icelandair, which uses a smaller Boeing 737 MAX 8, to shuttle a total of 160 passengers across two classes. Air France, British Airways, and Lufthansa all operate widebody airplanes on their respective routes.
Analyzing Trans-Atlantic Operations At RDU
With four existing European operators at RDU, Aer Lingus will add 920 weekly seats across the Atlantic when it commences its direct Raleigh flights from next April. Using data from Cirium, an online aviation analytics company, Simple Flying can identify that already, more than 6,200 seats are on offer each week from RDU to Europe.
The airline with the largest capacity is Air France, with its daily Boeing 787-9 service between RDU and Paris Charles de Gaulle, catering to more than 2,200 weekly seats, or an average of 324 per flight. British Airways, which operates the Boeing 777-200 to Raleigh, departs from London Heathrow daily to RDU, with 273 seats in each direction per flight, or 1,900 a week. A full snapshot of operators below as per data from Flightradar24 and Cirium for flights this week:
What makes these five carriers perfect for the route to Raleigh is that they can operate outbound passengers from RDU with extensive onward connections to Europe throughout their network. Both Icelandair and Aer Lingus will be counting on extensive connecting traffic to wider Europe. British Airways, Lufthansa, and Air France will likely have already stimulated strong point-to-point demand, but can also leverage their wider global networks.
Aer Lingus Flight Details
The five weekly services between Dublin and Raleigh will debut on April 13, with the outbound service from Dublin departing on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sundays as EI085 at 15:52. The flight will be in its Southwesterly direction to Raleigh, with an estimated travel time of eight hours, 30 minutes gate to gate. Scheduled arrival time, 18:55.
Return flights, operating as EI084, will again push back on the same weekdays as above, departing from RDU at 20:25 and traveling overnight to Europe. The flight has a block time of seven hours and 30 minutes for its north-easterly journey home, arriving back to the Irish capital in time for breakfast, at 08:45. This arrival time back to Dublin is scheduled perfectly to make the most of easy onward connections throughout the wider EI European network.
