Long-haul travel fell by over nine per cent at Aer Lingus in September, with the airline blaming the terror alerts in the UK for much of this decline.
Traffic statistics for September showed a 9.2 per cent decrease on long-haul flights, but the airline said the UK terrorism alert was the key factor behind this.
Load factors on its long-haul routes - primarily to the US - were disappointing, down 7.4 per cent to 72.8 per cent when compared with September 2005. Since it completed its initial public offering in early October, Aer Lingus has been required to produce monthly traffic statistics.
Dermot Mannion, chief executive of the airline, has identified long-haul route expansion as a key revenue driver for Aer Lingus in the years ahead. At present the airline flies scheduled services to New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dubai.
Overall the figures were broadly positive with scheduled passengers increasing by 6.4 per cent to 777,000 in September. The terrorist alert in the UK occurred during August and this may have led to some passengers to avoid booking in September.
Short-haul numbers rose by 8.9 per cent, although load factors dropped marginally to 80 per cent.
The airline also disclosed figures for the period from January to September showing passenger numbers up 8.2 per cent to 6.5 million. Again short-haul traffic growth was strong (up 10.6 per cent), but long-haul fell by 5.3 per cent. The decision to scrap its service to Orlando, Florida was a key reason for this fall, said the airline.
The route to Orlando, one of the world's most popular tourist destinations, was dropped after a disagreement with unions over the crewing requirements for such a service.
Meanwhile Aer Lingus said it was now planning to offer 65 short-haul routes by next summer. There will be new daily routes out of Dublin to Budapest, Geneva, Lisbon, Prague, Venice and Zurich. Some of these destinations have been serviced before, but not on a daily basis.
The following routes: Dublin to Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, Dubrovnik, Krakow, Madrid, Naples, Nice, Rennes, Riga and Seville will benefit from increased frequency.
There will also be increased frequency from Cork to Birmingham, Faro and London Heathrow.
New routes from Dublin to Newcastle and Milan-Malpensa will operate for summer 2007. Another new route from Dublin to Athens will commence from June 2007, operating three times weekly.
