Aer Lingus is considering legal action over Dublin Airport passenger cap

Airline CEO said economic growth needed not to be constrained by the passenger cap issue at Dublin Airport

Aer Lingus said it is operating its "biggest-ever" North American network this summer including the commencement of new services from Dublin to Minneapolis St. Paul and Denver and an expanded European leisure network. Photo: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

Aer Lingus said it is considering legal action over the winter passenger cap imposed at Dublin Airport this year.

The airline's CEO Lynne Embelton said it was critical that economic growth is not constrained by the passenger cap issue. "Dublin Airport is a critical piece of strategic national infrastructure, and the passenger cap issue needs to be urgently resolved – this requires both leadership from Government and action by the parties involved," she said.

Ms Embelton made the comments as Aer Lingus posted an operating loss of €82m in the first three months of 2024, marginally worse than €81m loss posted in the same period last year.

The airline said January to March was “typically the weakest” period of the year, with the latest quarterly loss following a full-year operating profit of €225m for 2023.

While revenue increased and overall capacity was up by 4% compared to the first quarter of 2023, Aer Lingus said the operating loss was due to higher costs.

It said its increased capacity reflected an early Easter and more premium leisure traffic, with capacity on North American routes increasing by 2% while Europe rose by 7%.

Aer Lingus said it is operating its “biggest-ever” North American network this summer including the commencement of new services from Dublin to Minneapolis St. Paul and Denver and an expanded European leisure network.

The airline's parent company IAG reported a surge in first-quarter earnings helped by rising demand over the Easter holiday and said it was seeing strong summer bookings.

Chief executive Luis Gallego said the group, which also owns Iberia, British Airways and Vueling airlines, had already secured more than 80% of projected bookings for the second quarter and over 40% for the third quarter.

IAG’s exposure to the Middle East was very small so it hadn’t seen a big impact from the conflict there, he said.

Shares in IAG rose 1.4% in early trading after the group said operating profit totalled €68m in the first three months.

That topped analysts’ forecasts of €49m, according to a company-compiled consensus, and compared with a profit of just €9m in the same quarter of last year.

“Our transformation initiatives and increased demand, including over the Easter holidays, have delivered another very good set of results with improvement to both revenue and operating profit,” Mr MGallego said in a statement.

Reporting by Reuters and the Irish Examiner