I'm looking for plane tickets for a residency for my Master's program (which means I have to arrive and return on specific dates). I live in Mississippi, and all the airports I've looked at will take me anywhere from 20 to 33 hours to get there: New Orleans, Jackson, Gulfport, Mobile, Atlanta. The flights include multiple very long layovers. My friend from Massachusetts says it only takes her 9 hours to get to Dublin.
Is there any way I can avoid such a long flight???
You are most likely looking at itineraries with multiple stops or one very long stop. Consider traveling to a larger airport and catching a direct flight if you can't find one from your home airport.
The best airports for flights to Dublin are probably New York or Boston. Both have fairly cheap non-stops. I would try to cobble together a flight from your nearest airport to either of these and then to Dublin. Combined flights will still probably take you about 12-16 hours depending on how your connections work out. Definitely something to think about.
If you give us your dates maybe someone here can give you better ideas. Using dummy dates I can see lots of 1-stop flights from Atlanta that are 12-14 hrs in length.
Look at skyscanner, they give you best price and best times when they are done searching for flights.
If you're sorting by the cheapest fare then multiple connection trips and long layovers will rise to the top. Try sorting by shortest duration.
We are leaving from Boston in a few weeks. 6 hrs going over, 7 hrs coming back on Aer Lingus. They have a lot of non stops from Boston to Shannon and Dublin. My daughter is used kayak, she is in Peru, to book a multi stop from Lima-Dublin-Boston-Lima and scrolled until she found our Aer Lingus flights for the Ireland legs.
Good luck!
I plan on taking off on January 7, landing in Dublin on the 8th, going to London on the 13th, and flying back on the 16th. The best I could find was $900 for 15 hours there and 13 hours back. That's a lot more than I wanted to spend. I've only checked kayak, so I'll check skyscraper too.
Hi, Teralynpilgrim,
Checkout this link to see if it may what you are looking for: https://www.condor.com/tca/us/offers/longhaul?origin=PDX&ns_campaign=portland%20brand&ns_mchannel=sem_us&ns_source=google_us&ns_linkname=portland%20brand&ns_fee=1&trc_channel. From here you could make a connection to Dublin, or pehaps even schedule a non-stop flight if Condor flies directly to Dublin from NO. Also, look into upgrading to Premium Class from Economy Class. The cost is not exorbitant to do so.
Since you're willing to fly from ATL, check JetBlue's website - you can book the entire trip through there (select Dublin from the "all cities" list if you're on a mobile device). You'd connect in BOS and fly to Dublin on Aer Lingus. Both airlines are partners and they fly out of the same terminal. I put in random dates and saw prices under $700. FYI - nonstop BOS to DUB is about a 6 hr. flight.
If you end up with a long layover in BOS and want some good eats, Rino's (Italian) and Angela's (Mexican) are walking distance from the Airport T station...or cab it downtown for a lobster roll at James Hook. Good luck and enjoy!
how do you roll a lobster? Wouldn't the claws get in the way?
I would strongly urge to to book directly with the airlines. For example this morning I am flying direct from Charlotte to Dublin. 7 hours. Next trip I may use WOW a low cost airline that recently had round trip tickets for as low as $69! Norwegian airlines had round trip fares as recently as last week from Boston or. New York at around $300.Both of these make a short stop in Iceland Both total flight time is still much less than 20 hours.
The direct flight from Atlanta to Dublin is seasonal only.
A flight from Atlanta to Dublin takes 7 hours at the most. Delta has a direct flight--if you need to fly to Shannon Delta requires a connection at JFK. We avoid that for sure.
I've looked at Atlanta, but I don't think I'm going to get a flight from there. I'd have to drive 5 hours and pay to park my car at the airport...it just won't be worth it. Probably New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi will be my only real options.
If you're going to fly out of Jackson or NO you are probably looking at $1200-1600 and 16-20 hours with 2 stops in each direction. That is what you have to deal with flying out of smaller non-major airports. I deal with it all the time as do others on this forum who don't live on the east coast or don't fly out of LAX, SFO, or SEA on the west coast. It is what it is.
Not to overly complicate this but have you considered splitting up your itinerary? I see direct flights from New Orleans to Boston for about $189 round trip, and then direct flights from Boston to Dublin for around $400 Round trip. - an overnight flight taking about 6 hours. If your friend lives in the Boston metro area maybe she could host you for a day in one or both directions, then drop you at the airport the next day for your ongoing flight.
You can also Look at flying to Washington Dulles (IAD) to catch an Aer Lingus flight. I'm not sure I'm understanding your exact sequence of flights (are you just visiting London while in Ireland or flying back to the U.S. from London....), but there are some approx. $570 roundtrip flights to DUB on Aer Lingus in January from Dulles. In short, you may want to look at Aer Lingus' website to see what they have going from Chicago, NY, BOS, Washington, and then see what times and prices are for your connecting flights from MS. As noted earlier, some Aer Lingus flights are seasonal.
Because Houston is a United hub, you might even start by flying the wrong way! Could you name some of the websites you are using for research? And I don't think it is unsafe for you to reveal the closest city to your home with a real, commercial airport. Then, you'll get better advice.
@teralynpilgrim- another option - Aer Lingus flies nonstop to Dublin from Orlando, and it might be easier for you to find a flight to MCO from the cities that are closer to you.
@Nigel - the meat is taken out of the claw, so it's painless (and delicious)! :)
My husband and I fly to Italy every year from Jackson, MS. We buy a roundtrip ticket from Jackson to NYC, and another roundtrip from NYC to wherever we're going in Italy. We're going to Ireland this year and plan to do the same thing. It's much cheaper and most of the time faster.
Martha
Thanks for the help, guys! I found tickets that were 12 hours there, 15 hours back, for only $568. I can't believe it. That's waaay less than I thought I was going to pay. I'm glad I asked you guys about this first instead of paying $900 for a 22 hour flight!
No. We were having trouble too, and for the first time in a century, we hired a travel agent. $50. She found us decent tickets and itinerary on Air Canada (we were leaving from Minneapolis), flying thru Toronto. 9 hours of flight time, 3 hour layover in Toronto both coming and going.
