Airline bullish on oil hike

AER Arann said it is well placed to cope with oil costs of more than $130 a barrel. The airline, which now serves six countries said its fuel hedging strategy and fuel-efficient aircraft have protected it adding that its aircraft have the best fuel economics in the airline industry.

It said its ATR 723 and 42 aircraft use 70% less fuel consumption than a plane on similar routes and use as much fuel flying 230 miles as a Boeing 747 consumes in 10 minutes of taxiing.

"As a result, Aer Arann is better insulated from the fuel price spike than other airlines," said managing director Garry Cullen.

The airline also said it carried 10% more passengers in May compared with the same month last year, as a result of Munster reaching the Heineken Cup final in Cardiff.

In a trading update for the first five months of this year Aer Arann said it carried 430,100 passengers, a 3.1% increase over the first quarter of last year with 42% increases on its Waterford-Manchester route and a 23% increase on it Galway-London route.

It is also projecting growth on existing routes and said the launch of the Dublin-Derry service will outweigh the pending departure of the Dublin-Kerry and Dublin- Knock routes, which were offered to two other airlines.