The recent terrorist alerts in Britain continued to affect passenger numbers at Aer Lingus, the airline said today.
Aer Lingus increased its passenger numbers year-on-year in October by 6.1 per cent to 760,000, but it said the terrorism alert of August had resulted in lower levels of advance bookings for August, September and October.
The number of passengers carried in October compared with 716,000 in the same month last year.
The national carrier saw an increase of 8 per cent in the number of passengers carried in the 10 months to October. Some 7,326,000 passengers were carried in that period compared with 6,782,000 in the 10 months to October last year.
Long-haul passenger numbers were down some 5.8 per cent, Aer Lingus said. The long-haul passenger load factor, in effect the percentage of seats filled on each flight, was 77.3 per cent, down 5.7 percentage points on October 2005.
The figures reflect the discontinuation of the Orlando, Florida, charter route, Aer Lingus said.
Short-haul passenger numbers increased by 8.2 per cent in October. But the short-haul passenger load factor, in effect the percentage of seats filled on each flight, was 73.8 per cent, down 2.2 points.