For airlines, market control has always been instrumental to bringing in profits.
Even a smaller city can become a key leg up if competitors are offering limited flights there. This is why low-cost carrier Breeze Airways (BREZ) -) recently added almost a dozen new routes to Fort Myers on Florida's Gulf Coast while JetBlue (JBLU) -) and Frontier Airlines (FRON) -) have been competing for the Puerto Rico market.
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Earlier this week, Irish airline Aer Lingus said that it will be adding two new routes between Dublin and the U.S. — a flight to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport launching on April 29 of next year and a Denver International Airport flight available from May 17 of the same year.
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"With Dublin's geographic position as the gateway to Europe, pre-clearance facilities at the airport and the strong, long established Irish American ties, Aer Lingus is ideally placed to connect people and places across the Atlantic," Aer Lingus CEO Lynne Embleton said in a statement. "Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul are significant business destinations within the U.S. and the new Aer Lingus routes facilitate corporate links and connectivity between Europe and North America, through our Dublin Hub."
This comes after, last May, Aer Lingus also launched a new route between Dublin and Cleveland. The new flights will be done on the 266-passenger Airbus (EADSF) -) 330-200 jets although Aer Lingus may opt for a larger plane for the Minneapolis route after the launch.
The airline had offered a flight between Minneapolis and Dublin in the past but slashed it in the spring of 2020 amid the pandemic.
On the same day as Aer Lingus, Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines (DAL) -) also said that it will start running a flight between Minneapolis and Dublin on May 9 five times a week.
With Aer Lingus running the Minneapolis flight four days a week, this brings the total number of weekly flights between the two cities to nine.
Calling it the "luck of the Irish" for travelers to Europe, Delta also said that the new network will allow it to "build on its longstanding No. 1 position in Minneapolis."
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"With nearly 10 trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights flying direct from the Twin Cities, customers have the utmost choice, coupled with our award-winning customer service, when traveling with us," Joe Esposito, Delta's SVP of network planning, said in a statement.
The proximity of the two new routes show that both airlines are feeling pressure to squeeze into these key markets. While Aer Lingus is positioning Dublin and Ireland in general as a gateway to more European cities, Delta is leaning into its U.S. base to appeal to its recognition among American travelers.
"Airlines typically announce several new summer routes at once, so Delta choosing to announce just one route the same day that another airline is announcing the same route is intentional," writes Ben Schlappig of airline website One Mile At A Time. "Now, it's anyone's guess if Delta was going to launch this route anyway and just moved forward the announcement due to Aer Lingus' plans, or if this is being added at the last minute for competitive reasons. Both are possible."
