Pittsburgh International Airport will soon offer direct flights to Ireland for the first time.

Irish national airline Aer Lingus will begin nonstop service between Pittsburgh and Dublin in May, local airport officials announced Thursday, further integrating the culturally and economically intertwined cities.

Dublin also serves as a connector for flights to Paris, Rome, London and several other major European cities.

The first flight will depart the evening of Memorial Day.

The 184-seat flights will operate four days a week from March through December.

Tickets start at $519 roundtrip, including taxes and fees. Those prices will increase going forward, said Bill Byrne, senior vice president of global sales for Aer Lingus.

Once the transatlantic route is up and running, Dublin will become Pittsburgh International Airport’s 63rd nonstop destination. Aer Lingus will become the 16th carrier serving the Pittsburgh market.

The airline flew the Pittsburgh Steelers to Dublin in September for a game against the Minnesota Vikings — a win, as several news conference speakers took pleasure in pointing out.

State politicians as well as business leaders made a trip alongside the Steelers to meet with their Irish counterparts, which was apparently pivotal to securing the new route to and from Dublin.

“I think that made a huge impact,” said Matthew Smith, vice chairman of the Allegheny County Airport Authority and chief growth officer of the Allegheny Conference on Economic Development.

The Pitt Panthers will travel to Dublin in 2027 to face the Wisconsin Badgers in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.

But the ties between Pittsburgh and Ireland run deeper than a couple of football games.

Several companies with corporate or regional headquarters in Pittsburgh, including UPMC, PPG Industries and the Bank of New York Mellon Corp., have a significant presence in Ireland.

“A direct connection between Pittsburgh and Ireland just couldn’t make more sense,” Byrne said.

And more than 16% of Pittsburghers self-identify as having Irish ancestry.

“It’s going to benefit a whole lot of companies here in the region,” said Christina Cassotis, CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority. “There’s also a really robust tech community over there, and of course there’s a lot of ancestral history here that wants to go back.”

The announcement comes less than a month after the opening of Pittsburgh International Airport’s new $1.7 billion terminal.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)