Aer Lingus passenger traffic rises

Aer Lingus flew more passengers in June as both long and short haul traffic rose compared with a year earlier.

The airline, which is currently fighting a takeover bid by rival airline Ryanair, said it carried a total of 918,000 passengers. That represented a 2 per cent rise compared with June 2011.

Of that total, that majority – 819,000 – were short haul passengers. Compared with a year earlier, short haul passengers were up only marginally. However, long haul passenger traffic showed an increase of 12.5 per cent.

Load factor – a measure of how full the planes were – also showed a rise, climbing 3.8 points to 82.6 per cent. Short haul flown load factor was 78.1 per cent, up 1.4 points compared with a year earlier, while long haul flown load factor was 92.4 per cent, rising by 9 points.

To date, Aer Lingus has flow 4.5 million passengers.

When its Aer Lingus Regional operations were taken into account, an additional 95,000 passengers, total passenger traffic was up 4.8 per cent in June.