Aer Lingus said today it would "at best" break even this year, as the slowing world economy, the weakness of sterling and the dollar and rising fuel costs continued to bite.
It also said it will suspend its route from Dublin to Los Angeles on November 2nd due to rising fuel costs. The carrier plans to reduce long-haul capacity by 15 per cent for the winter season.
Aer Lingus said its load factor, or proportion of seats filled, fell to 76.1 per cent in May from 80.4 per cent a year earlier. The decline was led by a 7.6 percentage-point drop on long-haul flights.
Aer Lingus shares fell by as much as 8 per cent on Dublin trading today. The carrier's stock declined as much as 13 cent to €1.50, the lowest price since trading began in 2006, and was down 4.9 per cent at 12.48pm.
In today's regulatory statement, the company repeated the outlook for 2008 remained challenging after first making the comments in May.
"Today, we can report that this outlook has not changed and that the unprecedented cost of fuel and the difficult operating environment are continuing to have a significant negative impact on the financial performance of the business," chairman John Sharman said in a statement ahead of its annual shareholder meeting.
"Based on current fuel prices and the uncertain economic outlook, we expect, at best, to break even for the year 2008," Sharman said.
"The board remains confident that the company's medium-term growth plans remain on track," Mr Sharman said.
"Aer Lingus has a strong balance sheet ... and a strong management team to manage its business through the current period of uncertainty."
Mr Sharman said its business was seasonal in nature and would be "markedly so" this year, with all its profit made in the second half.