Aer Lingus has no plans to cut winter flight schedule

Aer Lingus on Tuesday said it has no plans to cut its winter flight schedule this year despite its sister airline, British Airways (BA), announcing that it will axe 10,000 flights over the coming months.

BA, also owned by Aer Lingus parent International Airlines Group (IAG), said it was “adjusting” its winter schedule, which will include cuts amounting to about 8 per cent of its timetable for the period until March 2023.

It comes after Heathrow, where BA has its main hub, extended its 100,000 daily cap on passenger numbers by six weeks until the end of October, asking airlines to sell fewer flights due to a shortage of ground-handling staff.

Aer Lingus has had to cut a number of flights this summer due to the capacity cuts at Heathrow but mostly due to industrial action and staff shortages at European airports.

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A spokeswoman for the Irish airline said: “Aer Lingus plans to operate a schedule over the forthcoming winter which is in line with 2019 levels of capacity.”

Aer Lingus chief executive Lynne Embleton told an Oireachtas committee last month that Aer Lingus has operated one of the “most robust schedules of any European network carrier” over the summer months.

She said: “For example, Aer Lingus planned to operate 8,353 flights in June, and we operated 8,130 flights.”

Published late last month, interim results from IAG for the six months to June 30th, 2022, show Aer Lingus recorded a loss of €95 million, which was down from €192 million for the same period last year.

Passenger revenue soared from €33 million in the first half of 2021 to €610 million, while external revenue went from €65 million to €657 million, and segment revenue from €65 million to €666 million.

Airlines across Europe have grappled with staffing shortages over the summer months, with BA among the worst effected. The carrier was forced to offer some staff a 13 per cent pay increase in an agreement with unions that headed off the threat of a strike after dismissing some 10,000 workers at the start of the Covid pandemic.