Aer Lingus results hit by volcano

The Irish carrier, Aer Lingus, last week announced its traffic figures for May, a month severely affected by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland.

The volcano erupted in April and continued to affect European air transport into May with airspace closures and restrictions due to volcanic ash in the atmosphere.

Aer Lingus said that there were 11 days last month on which they were unable to operate a full schedule.  This led to an overall drop in passenger numbers of nearly 10%.

The airline carried 876,000 passengers in May, 9.9% down on the same month in 2009.  Long haul traffic was hit worst dropping 12.2% to 79,000 while short haul passengers fell 9.6% to 797,000.

Aer Lingus have previously stated that the disruption during April would cost the airline in the region of €20m.  No update to this figure has been given.

The airline did admit that their load factor in May had increased.  However, this is largely due to the 17.7% reduction in capacity due to the canceled flights.

Source: Belfast Telegraph