Aer Lingus passenger traffic rises

Aer Lingus said overall passenger traffic rose in September as its long haul business and regional flights grew over the year.

A total of 1.019 million passengers flew with Aer Lingus and Aer Lingus Regional last month, a 1.7 per cent rise year on year.

But the carrier said the number of passengers on its main service fell by 0.8 per cent to 926,000, as fewer short haul passengers travelled. Some 829,000 passngers took short haul flights with Aer Lingus, down 1.4 per cent from a year earlier. Load factor was 81.4 per cent, 0.5 points higher than last year.

On the long haul side of the business, load factor rose three points to 90.7 per cent, and total passengers were up 4.3 per cent to 97,000.

The Aer Lingus Regional venture carried 93,000 passengers in Spetember, up 36.8 per cent compared with a year earlier.

Over the year to date, Aer Lingus has carried more than 8.2 million passengers in total, a 4 per cent increase compared with the same period in 2011.