Aer Lingus passengers fall 4.5% in April but load factor rises

Passenger numbers at Aer Lingus fell 4.5 per cent in April as the airline's short haul routes carried fewer travellers.

The company said a total of 823,000 passengers flew on Aer Lingus’s mainline routes last month, compared with 862,000 a year earlier. Short haul passengers fell from 751,000 in 2014 to 710,000 last month, but the number of long haul travellers rose to 113,000 from 111,000 over the same period.

In the year to date, Aer Lingus said passenger numbers were 2 per cent down on last year, with 2.64 million people flying on the carrier’s mainline routes compared with 2.695 million in the same period last year. Long haul was up 15.1 per cent in the period to 335,000 passengers, while short haul fell 4.1 per cent to 2.3 million.

Passenger load factor, a measure of how full the aircraft are, rose 2.6 points for short haul routes and 2 points for long haul compared with April last year. Aer Lingus said this was a reflection of the successful implementation of demand led strategies.

Aer Lingus Regional flights showed a drop of 10.7 per cent in the number of passengers carried, from 112,000 last April to 100,000 last month, and 8.2 per cent decline in the year to date.