Aer Lingus passengers rise 7.7%

Aer Lingus carried 1.08 million passengers in August, an increase of 7.7 per cent compared to the same month last year.

The airline’s load factor – the average number of seats filled on each aircraft – increased by 2.4 percentage points last month to 83 per cent during the same period.

Short-haul traffic increased by 10 per cent to 973,000 last month, while long-haul passenger numbers declined 8.3 per cent per cent to 116,000.

The load factor on short-haul flights was 85 per cent, up two points on 2008, with capacity rising 10.7 per cent. Capacity on long-haul services fell 14.8 per cent with the load factor rising 2.1 points to 79.7 per cent.