Aer Lingus passenger numbers up 5.3% in May

Aer Lingus carried more than 1 million passengers May as the airline saw traffic rise 5.3 per cent higher than in the same month last year.

The number of short haul passengers, including those carried by its regional operations, flown by Aer Lingus increased to 914,000 (up 3.7 per cent year on year) and the airline’s long haul numbers increased by more than one fifth to 107,000.

Regional traffic increased by 2.3 per cent year on year to 90,000.

Flown passenger load factor rose by 3.6 points year on year to 79.8 per cent with short haul rising by 3.4 per cent to 77.2 per cent. Capacity in short haul fell by 1.8 per cent.

Long haul load factor increased to 84.4 per cent (up 2.9 points) as capacity rose by 16.8 per cent on the previous year.

To date this year, Aer Lingus said it had carried more than 4 million passengers, an increase of 2 per cent on the corresponding period in 2012.

A decline in the numbers travelling on its short haul services (down 0.2 per cent) to 3.249 million was compensated for by an 11.3 per cent rise in long haul traffic (to 373,000 passengers) and a 13.4 per cent rise in regional traffic (to 398,000 passengers) in the first five months of 2013.