Irish problems manifest

At the same time as Aer Lingus reports a poor performance for March Aer Arran has announced that it is dropping several regional routes from Dublin to the west of Ireland.

Aer Lingus says that booked passenger figures fell by 8.4% to 716,000 in March split between short haul and long haul.  The airline points out that while the Easter holiday began in the last week of March in 2010, this will not occur until late April this year.  The booked load factor in March for Aer Lingus decreased by 3.7 points on to 72.2%. 

Aer Arann Chairman Pádraig Ó Céidigh has confirmed that the airline's routes from Sligo and Knock to Dublin will end from 21 July.  He had earlier said that the service from Galway to Dublin would cease after mid-July.  The Aer Arann Chairman noted that there were currently no negotiations under way with the Department of Transport in relation to an extension to the current PSO (Public Service Obligation) contract, which provides subsidies for some regional routes.  With a new Government in place obliged to deal with Ireland’s economic problems the dropping of the subsidy on these routes came as no surprise. www.aerlingus.com www.aerarann.com

Index/Home page
 

OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum