Aer Lingus, Ireland's second-largest airline, said Wednesday it plans to fly nonstop between Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and Dublin next summer.
The daily flight to Ireland's capital city marks the sixth nonstop European destination from MSP and gives area travelers a new, and possibly more affordable, way across the Atlantic Ocean.
"We learned that there is significant demand among Minnesota's business community for direct air service to Ireland," Brian Ryks, chief executive of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, said in a statement.
Among the most visible business ties is Medtronic's Dublin headquarters, established when it bought Ireland-based Covidien more than three years ago. The company employs more than 4,000 people in the country, including extensive operations in the western city of Galway.
Ryks and his team, along with business-development organizations Greater MSP and the MSP Regional Air Service Partnership, presented that information to Aer Lingus executives and convinced them that nonstop service between the two cities would be profitable for the airline.
Minneapolis-St. Paul is one of a handful of destinations to benefit from Aer Lingus' rapid expansion in North America. The airline said it also plans to add nonstop service to Montreal in 2019. The airline offers nonstop service between Ireland and New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Orlando, Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Conn.
Tickets will go on sale later this month with the cheapest fare class beginning at $759, Aer Lingus said Wednesday. But an online search of the airline's flights reveals much lower round-trip prices — less than $400 round-trip — from Dublin to Chicago, the nearest market to MSP that Aer Lingus currently serves.
The airline, which was owned by the Ireland government before being privatized, is a subsidiary of International Airlines Group, which also owns British Airways and Iberia. Competition on transatlantic flights has increased in recent years as European ultra-low-cost airlines like Norwegian Air and Wow Air have started flying to select U.S. markets.