Aer Lingus traffic stats reveal weather disruption

Aer Lingus said today that poor weather conditions leading to flight cancellations and significant disruption last month resulted in 8% less passengers flying with the airline than had booked.

Aer Lingus’ total booked passenger numbers in December 2010 were 572,000, a decrease of 25.3% compared to December 2009, the airline said.

Short haul booked passengers were 504,000, a 27.3% decrease on December 2009 while long haul booked passengers in December 2010 were 68,000, a decrease of 6.8% on December 2009.

The airline's booked load factor for the month, or the number of passengers flown as a percentage of total seats available, improved by 2.7 points on December 2009 to 74.6%.

Short haul booked load factor was 73.2%, an increase of 3.7 points on December 2009, with capacity decreasing by 31.9% as a result of weather-related disruptions and planned year-on-year reductions at London Gatwick, Dublin and Cork.

Long haul booked load factor was 76.6%, a decrease of 0.2 points on December 2009, with capacity decreasing by 6.6%.