I just flew Aer LIngus for the first time in six decades of traveling. It was a reasonable cost flight for two, round-trip from Washington (IAD) to Faro (FAO) in economy class.
The ground staff were universally friendly and compassionate, though they played with the queuing process rather amusingly. The aircraft were clean and appeared to be well maintained.
Schedule was not a priority and three of the four flights were delayed at boarding with exactly zero information provided to passengers each time.
Two of the flights arrived early, but were both delayed by a lack of gate preparation at Dublin, leading to actual net delays in disembarking from the aircraft. In both cases, this meant a crowded rush to disembark by a lot of anxious passengers, that was met by a closed cabin door and long periods of people, many rather expansive in girth, crammed in the aisle but not moving for a long period.
In-flight trans-Atlantic service featured a tasty dinner/lunch entrée each time.
Otherwise, the inflight service could best be described as abysmal, negligent, and lethargic. Water, a key requirement of an 8 hour flight, was virtually unobtainable, except by begging from a single flight attendant busy on their phone in the galley while their colleagues slept in the last row. Beverage service was offered twice during 8 hours, the first just prior to the meal, the second time exclusively coffee or tea - no water or other beverages. Flying east, there was one meal, flying west a tiny sandwich and a cookie were offered, prior to landing without beverage. Departing IAD, I was amused by the passenger in front of me who brought a pizza on-board, but now I get it.
An interesting engineering aspect of the A321 aircraft seating is the provided headsets plug directly into the screen. This means, if the window seat passenger needs to stand, the other two passengers must stop whatever they are watching on the touch screen and then physically disconnect their headsets. I am guessing the standard armrest headset connection must have interfered with the aforementioned girth or something. For whatever reason, it's not a great design.
Another interesting design is the economy lavatory hidden behind a flight attendant seat in the galley. As I am 76 inches/193cm I could really only use that hidden lavatory as the two others had very low, curved overheads. Think of them as Cirque du Soleil contortionist lavatories.
My A321 seat was hard and uncomfortable, as if the pad had been worn thin and hard through long use by large people. I tried sitting on one of the provided pillows, but that wasn't much help. At a not insignificant extra cost, I had upgraded to an exit row, so I did have reasonable legroom on the IAD=DUB and DUB=IAD legs. The normal seats on the DUB-FAO legs were the normal, steerage seat pitch, compounded by the entertainment device boxes occupying the legroom under every seat.
Lastly, virtually all of the folks on the DUB-FAO leg (Full A330 both directions) were traveling on UK passports. Since Brexit, this means the non-EU passport queues are very, very, badly overwhelmed. Passport control wait times arriving and leaving (U.S. Passport) were on the order of 90 minutes arriving and 60 minutes departing. As Ryan Air and Aer Lingus are very significant carriers at FAO, it behooves them to engage the FAO airport to do something about this - such as subsidizing physical and personnel improvements. Brexit has its costs that should be payed by those responsible.
Finally, were I not a water-dependent mammal, had I slept the entire flight, and also perhaps were I not taller than average, I believe the flight would have been tolerable. Alas, I am, I didn't and I am, so it wasn't.
I am looking for any suggestion for comfortable, reasonable media of travel from IAD to FAO. My next try will likely be direct flight to Lisbon and driving the balance. That gives a better array of airlines and the elimination of changing planes.