THE southern Mediterranean never sees an Aer Lingus scheduled service. Neither do most of Scandinavia or many large cities incontinental Europe which are not capitals. Now Mr Gary McGann, Aer Lingus's chief executive, says the airline must grow beyond its existing market base.

Aer Lingus must almost double profits on sales by increasing its revenue and reducing costs in order to survive when market conditions are less favourable, he warned. Further cost reductions could be achieved through better use of technology and cutting back office costs, he said.

Revenue can be increased by alliances such as the code sharing agreement with Hamburg Airlines, which gives Aer Lingus an entree to Germany's largest city. An alliance with United Airlines will feed in passengers from the US west coast to a new service beginning in May that will link Chicago directly to Dublin.

The most important alliance, however, is the agreement to become a "Worldwide Partner" of Delta Airlines. Delta, the third largest US carrier, will feed passengers into the Aer Lingus services out of New York and Boston. Mr McGann says he hopes that this will help Ireland pick up American tourists who might not otherwise think of making a stop in Dublin or Shannon.

Even more important for the future of the transatlantic service is the deal to participate in each other's frequent flyer programme. It is generally accepted in the industry that high yielding business traffic cannot be attracted without a frequent flyer incentive. Delta's passengers will now be able to pick up points on their "Skymiles" programme by flying Aer Lingus and Aer Lingus passengers can earn TAB points when they fly Delta.

Too much of Aer Lingus's transatlantic business comes from tourists for a satisfactory profit. The people "in the back of the bus", as the airlines say, are not as valuable as the ones paying business class fares.

The deal with Dell a now makes it possible for Aer Lingus to offer credible incentive to ask US business travellers to fly with it. Up to now, most would have flown to London to earn their frequent flyer points with their regular airline.

Delta has two other "Worldwide Partners", Swissair and Singapore Airlines. In both cases there is a cross shareholding.