Aer Lingus long-haul traffic falls as short-haul numbers soar

AER Lingus long-haul traffic nose-dived last month, falling by more than 12% as short-haul numbers soared.

The airline has been struggling to increase long-haul passenger numbers and recently announced plans to cut its long-haul winter seat capacity by 25%.

Figures released yesterday show overall passenger numbers climbed 8.2% in July to 1.12 million from 1.03 million a year ago.

The load factor, a measure of seats filled, fell one percentage point to 82.3%. Long-haul load factor was 77.0%, down 4.0 points on 2008.

Aer Lingus expanded its short-haul network by adding bases at Belfast and London’s Gatwick Airport to help counter a decline in demand for long-haul trips.

In July long-haul passenger numbers declined 12.4% to 113,000, while short-haul trips rose 11.2% to one million.

Bloxham analyst, Joe Gill said given comments from competitors and Aer Lingus it can be assumed that yields on both short and long-haul remain under pressure.

Aer Lingus reports half year 2009 results at the end of the month and NCB expect to see an operating loss of €94 million for the period with net cash slipping below €500m.

Goodbody analyst, Eamon Hughes said: “Aer Lingus recently announced a very welcome number of aircraft deferrals and the early cancellation of some leased aircraft, which should enable it to further reduce its capacity to offset falling passenger numbers.”

Also yesterday, BAA, the British airports group said traffic for July declined 2.4% paring the 5.9% slide in June and 7.3% decline in May.

Meanwhile Ryanair said that in June 89% of its flights arrived on time and it had less than one mislaid bag claim per 1,000 passengers.