Second airline drops Boston winter schedule from Shannon

By Pat Flynn

A second airline has confirmed that it will drop services between Shannon and Boston for the next winter season.

Following a similar announcement from Norwegian Air International last week, Aer Lingus has now confirmed that it won’t operate between Shannon and Boston during the months of January to March.

Aer Lingus usually retains its Boston route through the winter schedule months of January to March while dropping its New York services.

Next year, however, while the Boston service will be suspended, Aer Lingus will not only reinstate its New York route for that part of the schedule but will also increase capacity.

An Aer Lingus spokesman said: "We will continue to operate a Shannon transatlantic service through Winter season 2018/19. Whereas the Shannon to New York service was suspended during the January to March period this year the Shannon to Boston service will be suspended during that period in 2019, while the Shannon New York service will continue to operate."

"Our analysis of both routes indicates that the New York route shows greater overall demand during this period. In addition, we can offer our Shannon guests more onward connecting opportunities, with our partner JetBlue, via New York than we can via Boston.

"We will be operating a greater number of flights from Shannon to New York during the winter season next year than we operated from Shannon to Boston this winter. As a result, our total transatlantic seat capacity from Shannon will increase by 2,500 next winter,” the airline added.

Aer Lingus’ transatlantic routes from Shannon are operated by ASL Airlines using Boeing 757 aircraft.