Aer Lingus passenger numbers down for July as Ryanair report 8% rise

Aer Lingus’s passenger figures for the year are up marginally but the number of passengers carried in July was down marginally on the same month last year.

July is traditionally one of the airline industry’s busiest months, but Aer Lingus’s total number of passenger’s flown in July was 1,004,000, a decrease of 0.7% compared with the same period last year.

Aer Lingus Regional’s total flown passenger numbers in July were 105,000, an increase of 40% compared to July 2011.

Short-haul flown passengers last month were 905,000, a decrease of 1% on Jul 2011, while long haul flown passengers were 99,000, an increase of 2%.

Ryanair, who are bidding to take over Aer Lingus, increased its passenger numbers by 645,000 in July.

The airline said it carried 8.72m passengers last month, an 8% increase compared to last year, when numbers were 8.08m.

EasyJet and Air France KLM also reported their July traffic figures.

Both airlines delivered growth, with EasyJet releasing stronger-than-expected figures.

Goodbody’s analyst Dónal O’Neill said that they had expected the Olympics to have a negative impact on the airline.

“These continually strong traffic stats fully endorse management’s growth strategy and focus on business traffic.

“We had been concerned that there would be some softness in traffic in July given the unquantifiable impact of the Olympics, but those concerns would appear to have been overly cautious.”

Aer Lingus shares closed at €1.07 last night, down 1.83%.