Aer Lingus passenger numbers fall

Aer Lingus’s passenger traffic continued to decline in March with the airline recording a 7 per cent drop in customer numbers on its short-haul and transatlantic flights.

Passenger numbers for the first quarter were down 7.3 per cent at 2.18 million.

The airline said it carried 835,000 passengers in March compared to 898,000 in the same month last year as the impact of the recession weighed on demand.

Aer Lingus’s long-haul services remained under pressure and recorded a 20.9 per cent decline in passengers to 87,000, from 110,000 a year ago. During the first three months of the year long-haul passenger numbers declined 14.6 per cent.

The airline’s transatlantic routes have faced three main issues; the economic downturn, the weakness of the dollar and intense competition.

Capacity on these routes last month was down almost a quarter (19.5 per cent) compared to last year.

The decline in short-haul services was less acute, dropping 5.1 per cent year-on-year to 748,000.

Aer Lingus recorded an overall marginal increase in its average load factors – the number of seats filled on each aircraft – due to a reduction in the number of routes, although the load factor on transatlantic flights did dip.

The load factor on short-haul routes rose 0.6 points to 78.6 per cent. Transatlantic flights achieved an average load factor of 71.5 per cent, down from 72.2 per cent a year earlier.

Aer Lingus said it had decreased its capacity on short-haul flights by 13.1 per cent. For short-haul flights the capacity decline was 5.7 per cent and on long-haul flights it was down 23.3 per cent.