Aer Lingus has announced four new routes to Europe as part of its summer schedule for 2005. The services from Dublin to Seville, Naples, Marseille and Hamburg will begin at the end of March.
Earlier this year, the airline announced four new services - from Cork to Munich, Rome, Nice and Faro - which are due to start at the end of April 2005.
Aer Lingus chief operations officer, Mr Séamus Kearney, said the airline had more than trebled its network in the past three years.
"Already in 2004 we have announced 17 new routes, we continue to reduce airfares, our website now accounts for over 60 per cent of all our bookings and in addition, we introduced a user friendly, self-service check-in system," he said.
The airline is currently replacing large parts of its short-haul fleet with new Airbus aircraft. This has given it extra capacity.
Meanwhile, it was reported yesterday that Ryanair was in talks to begin flights to an additional nine airports in Spain.
Ryanair chief executive, Mr Michael O'Leary, told the El Pais newspaper the airline was considering about 80 new airports in Europe, including six in Italy and 17 in Germany, as part of its expansion programme. He did not provide further detail.
"There is a long queue of airports which are after our flights," he said.
In Spain, Ryanair is due to begin flights to Zaragoza from December 1st, to Almeria from January 19th and to Seville in February, according to the newspaper.
EasyJet said yesterday passenger traffic in October rose 25 per cent from a year ago to 2.4 million people after it added new routes. EasyJet also said its load factor was 87 per cent, up from 85.5 per cent last year.
