Edinburgh to Shannon, Ireland

I randomly put in a March 2022 date, and an online search says an Aer Lingus flight gets you there in an hour and 35 minutes, cheap. But that’s not available every day of the week, and you might have to do a more expensive two-leg journey, connecting through London. But that would still get you to Shannon in time to joint the second tour in Ennis. When’s your double tour scheduled?

When in 2022?

Due to Covid, it’s too early to be looking for 2022 flights, as airlines haven’t announced their schedules yet. At present, there aren’t any direct flights from Edinburgh to Shannon, so you may have to fly to Dublin then take the train or a car service to Ennis. Putting a date of next April, it shows a few direct flights a week, but these are operated by Stobart Air who ceased operations this week.

Scotland 9/4-11 An 8 day tour
Ireland 9/11-18 also 8 day. Starting at 4 pm

Even if there wasn't a Pandemic, flight schedules for September 2022 wouldn’t likely be available until at least July of this year, about 10 months out. See what flights show up online in another 4 or 5 weeks, and you could get an idea of what your options will be in late summer of next year. Unless it’s going to be prohibitively expensive for some unlikely reason, flying direct from Edinburgh to Shannon, then a shuttle by land to Ennis would be your best plan, rather than multiple flights and/or having to go overland to involve any additional airports in Scotland or Ireland.

And if you wind up with a super-early flight the morning of Sept. 11, you might need to forego the farewell group breakfast, and get to the Edinburgh airport. That’ll be your last chance to get a side of haggis at breakfast, but your Irish oatmeal awaits 😋

In September 2019 I flew from Edinburgh to join a Rick Steves tour in Ennis. I booked with Aer Lingus, but the flight was operated by Stobart Air. I booked a one way flight for that leg of my journey. The flight left at 0850 and arrived in Shannon at 1030, leaving lots of time to catch the bus to Ennis. It was all very easy and I got there in plenty of time for the start of the tour that afternoon. I was even able to check into the hotel a bit earlier than they advertised.

Now...obviously this was all pre-Covid so take this worth a grain of salt. But back then I booked all this in March 2019 and traveled in September 2019, so I agree with the others that it's much too early to book anything right now.

Another way to get there is to take a flight from Edinburgh to Dublin (1 hour), Catch a bus straight from the airport to Limerick (2.5 hours) runs hourly, then catch a bus to Ennis (45 min.) runs hourly. If you got a mid morning flight this would be doable.

Yes, the main problem being that literally a few days ago Stobart ceased operations.

But you have quite a while until you have to do this, maybe someone else will take up their routes by then.