February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
“We are considering it but we can’t confirm it,” Amy Kudwa, head of media relations at the Arlington, Va.-based airline said Tuesday. “We are doing our homework, it is a possibility.”
Kudwa added that U.S. Airways is “shopping around” in a number of European locations, including a couple in Ireland.
That would most likely mean Dublin and Shannon.
Kudwa said that while no decision had yet been made, an announcement about new routes could be expected “in the next few weeks.” The most likely U.S. city to fly from would be Philadelphia where U.S. has an East Coast hub.
The addition of a service from Philadelphia to one or more Irish airports would be a significant boost to the Irish tourist industry as well as a boon for business travelers.
If the U.S. Airways service is started up, the carrier would join two other U.S. airlines, Continental and Delta, that are presently operating flights into Ireland.
Continental flies from Newark and Delta operates from Atlanta.
The largest carrier servicing Ireland from the U.S. is Aer Lingus, with routes out of New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles.
The Irish carrier recently announced a resumption of its service out of Baltimore/Washington, D.C., which had been suspended in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
U.S. airways, meanwhile, operates 282 jet aircraft, has 1,245 daily departures serving 89 airports, and last year carried more than 62 million passengers.
The closest destinations to Ireland that the airline currently serves are Manchester and London/Gatwick.