Aer Lingus launch Dublin to San Francisco route

Aer Lingus have launched a new route between Dublin and San Francisco.

The route, which will fly five times a week starting today, has been welcomed by IDA who said it will "make Ireland even more visible to companies" and "boost Ireland’s profile and visibility as a business location in the Silicon Valley region".

Barry O’Leary, CEO of IDA Ireland, said: "Approximately 40% of the foreign direct investment to Ireland from the US comes from the Silicon Valley area.

"Major technology companies, such as LinkedIn and Google have their international headquarters in Dublin while their founding HQs are in the San Francisco area. What was needed was air access to bring the two operations centres closer, thankfully we now have that and that boosts the offering Ireland can present to the vibrant Silicon Valley community, making Ireland even more visible to companies looking to internationalise.”

Managing Director of Facebook Ireland, Sonia Flynn said: "Dublin is a thriving hub for innovative, fast growing businesses – so we’re delighted to see the city connected to Silicon Valley again. Ireland’s economy can only benefit from connections to sources of investment and growth, so we’re happy to have worked with the IDA to help reinstate this direct route.

"Since arriving in Ireland in 2009, Dublin has offered Facebook talent in abundance and we currently have plans to expand our team at our new offices in Grand Canal Dock."

IDA said the IT sector represented 30% of Dublin office take-up in 2013 and US tech giants alone invested more than $130bn (approximately €95bn) into Ireland between 2008 and 2012 – the same as in all of developing Asia.

Our CEO, Christoph Mueller, speaking at the launch of our #DUBSFO route at @DublinAirport this morning pic.twitter.com/tyFhqYSMgW

— Aer Lingus (@AerLingus) April 2, 2014

California accounts for 55% of all US venture capital investment in Ireland from West Coast giants including, PayPal, Twitter, Apple, Intel, eBay, Qualcomm, Oracle, McAfee and Yahoo!.

There are 179 companies employing more than 36,000 people in Ireland from the West Coast of the US. These companies are primarily based in the technology and digital media sectors.

For IDA Ireland, the West Coast is the largest single source for FDI projects. In 2013, 30 investments from West Coast companies were approved and involved more than 3,000 Irish jobs, or approximately one quarter of the total jobs created by IDA Ireland that year.

IDA CEO Barry O'Leary and Sonia Flynn, MD Facebook Ireland chatting at launch of new Dub-SFO route #whyireland pic.twitter.com/SBq7QZWNsf

— IDA Ireland (@IDAIRELAND) April 2, 2014