My Aer Lingus A321neo flight in AerSpace (business, but not quite business class) from Dublin to London was short but sweet. Here’s a quick look at my 280-mile flight from the English capital to the Irish capital.

Aer Lingus A321neo AerSpace – My First Impressions

After the check-in snafu, I used the Aer Lingus Lounge in T2, the only lounge in the “Queen’s Terminal” that I have not used. With a nice English breakfast and a barista-made coffee, it’s now one of my favorites.

My boarding pass indicated that boarding would begin 30 minutes prior to departure, but when I showed up 35 minutes prior to departure, boarding was mostly complete. In fact, I was the last passenger onboard…

Stepping onto the aircraft,  I found only one other person seated in business class (and to be clear, Aer Lingus does not even sell business class on flights across the Irish Sea and within Europe, but will sell front-cabin seats in what it calls “AerSpace”).

I took some more pictures after we landed:

A flight attendant warmly greeted me. No pre-departure beverage, but we soon pushed back…it would be a quick flight to Dublin. I was seated in 5K, a throne seat (the other passenger was in 3K). The A321neo has 16 seats in business class: a very classic Thompson Aero Vantage seat. You’ll see these seats on the SAS A321LR as well and on JetBlue’s older A321s.

> Read More: SAS A321LR Business Class Review
> Read More: JetBlue A321 Mint Business Class Review

If you can score a throne seat, you can count on excellent space and comfort. If you wind up in an even-numbered row, you will have a seatmate and window seat passengers will not have direct aisle access.

The seat reclines into a lie-flat bed, though of course there was no need to sleep on a 9:50 am flight that was only 45 minutes long.

The full in-flight entertainment library was available, but no headphones were offered. Wi-Fi internet was available too.

In AerSpace, there is no meal service in the traditional sense…certainly nothing plated like on a longhaul flight. Instead, you can have one food item and one drink from the Bia menu (Bia, pronounced Bee-ah, is Irish for “food”).

I was hoping to order the Irish Breakfast, which his a mainstay on the buy-on-board menu, but was told there were none loaded. Instead, I had a “Festive Turkey, Cranberry, Ham, & Cheese Toastie” which was actually quite decent (I’ll do a Meal Of The Week post on it) with a bottle of sparkling water.

We landed on-time in Dublin, where I found a very chaotic terminal under construction. I’ll have more details and pictures about the seat, service, IFE, and lavatory in my full review.

Next, I’ll review my very odd time on the ground in Dublin (the lounge situation is really messed up right now) and then my A330-200 flight to Los Angeles.

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