Aer Lingus reported a €20 million fall in operating profits for 2024, blaming industrial action over the summer and an increase in competition for transatlantic traffic.
The airline operator – part of International Airlines Group (IAG), which reported a 26.7 per cent surge in operating profits to €4.44 billion for last year on Friday – said it carried 11 million passengers in 2024, up by close to 3 per cent from 2023 after it expanded its North American route network in the year.
Still, operating profits at Aer Lingus slid almost 9 per cent in the year to €205 million.
Aer Lingus said its second and third financial quarters were “impacted by industrial action “and an increase in transatlantic competitor capacity”.
The pilots’ row cost €55 million over the second and third quarters, the airline said previously.
But speaking to reporters on a conference call on Friday afternoon, Aer Lingus chief executive said An Bord Pleanála’s (ABP) draft ruling that would cap the number of night-time flights at Dublin Airport to an average of 35 a day from more than 100 currently could be a barrier to the airline’s future growth in the Republic.
The decision, published last September, has been widely criticised by the aviation industry and Dublin Airport operator DAA.
Ms Embleton said there were some aspects of the preliminary ruling with which Aer Lingus agreed. However, she said ABP’s “strange insertion” of a 13,000 annual cap on the number of arriving and departing flights between 11pm and 7am at the north runway was “absolute madness”.
“If you think about the functioning of an airport,” she said, “you think about a hub where passengers can come in from Europe and from the US and connect onwards. You just can’t do that with this level of reduction.”
Ms Embleton said the carrier’s performance in the fourth quarter was “positive” and demonstrated “underlying momentum in the business”.
Aer Lingus also added the first two of six new Airbus XLR jets to its fleet in 2024, which it said would enable route expansion and reduce its emissions.
Ms Embleton also welcomed the new Government’s commitment to address the Dublin Airport passenger cap row. “It is critical that the Government urgently implements a solution that gives the longer-term certainty that is needed,” she said.
She said the airline remained “focused on continually improving our efficiency and productivity”.
Meanwhile, Aer Lingus’s parent group IAG reported operating profits of €4.44 billion for last year, exceeding analyst expectations.
On Friday, the group, which also owns Iberia and British Airways, unveiled plans to return €1 billion to shareholders in a buyback this year, which it said reflected its confidence in the outlook for global air travel this year.
“We are delivering world-class margins and returns, in line with the targets we set out to the market just over a year ago,” said IAG chief executive Luis Gallego.
He said the performance was “underpinned” by the execution of the group’s “transformation strategy” in the year.
Mr Gallego unveiled a significant £7 billion investment British Airways last March, aimed at reducing cancellations and easing bottlenecks at its Heathrow hub by hiring more staff and improving scheduling.
IAG’s transformation initiatives, which it describes as a “continuous process”, have also included improvements to the Aer Lingus phone app and the introduction of a digital rebooking tool for British Airways customers affected by disruptions.
