Despite a steep fall-off in corporate travel between Ireland and the US in the last four months, Aer Lingus is to increase its transatlantic service, offering 45 round trips a week this winter, up from 40 last year.

Ending months of speculation, Mr Jack Foley, Aer lingus executive vice president, North America, said in New York yesterday that the Baltimore and Los Angeles service would not be scrapped as a cost-cutting measure. the Los Angeles service would remain at three round-trip flights a week and Baltimore would increase from three to four per week.

"At a time when other airlines are scaling down their schedules, Aer Lingus is...offering more choices to its passengers by increasing capacity from most of our gateways," he said.

Flights from Newark, New Jersey would also rise from four to five a week and from Chicago from six to seven per week, providing a daily service. Boston would go up from ten to 12 round-trips per week and flights from JFK to Dublin and Shannon would continue daily.

Mr Foley said that in the last four months there had been a drop of 30-40 per cent in business travel which accounts for 15 per cent of transatlantic passengers and 40 per cent of revenue, with both the US and Ireland suffering from a slowdown in the important tech sectors.

He said it would be some weeks before it could be really established if this was a summer lull or a corporate travel lull".