AER LINGUS carried just over one million passengers in August, an 8.8 per cent increase on the same month of 2007.

However, the proportion of seats filled on each aircraft declined to 80.5 per cent during the month, from 81.7 per cent a year earlier.

Aer Lingus said it carried 885,000 passengers on its short-haul flights in August, a year-on-year increase of 10.6 per cent. The number of people carried on long-haul flights to the US declined by 2.3 per cent to 127,000.

The short-haul load factor for August was slightly up on 2007 at 83 per cent. This came against a backdrop of a 15.4 per cent increase in capacity year-on-year.

The long-haul load factor fell to 77.5 per cent from 80.3 per cent a year earlier, which Aer Lingus said was a result of "capacity increases" of 4.5 per cent.

In the year to the end of August, Aer Lingus carried 7.2 million passengers, a 9.8 per cent rise on the same period of 2007.

Aer Lingus's load factor in the first eight months of this year declined to 75.3 per cent from 79.5 per cent 12 months earlier.

The proportion of people carried on short-haul flights declined to 78 per cent of the seats available from 79.1 per cent, while its long-haul load factor was down eight points to 72 per cent.

Aer Lingus's share price fell yesterday in Dublin by 2.4 per cent to €1.59. Last week Aer Lingus reported an operating loss of €22.3 million, largely because of rising fuel costs.

Chief executive Dermot Mannion has warned the airline needs "fundamental change" if it is to minimise a potential €100 million operating loss in 2009. He said in the Financial Timesthis week cost-cutting measures would be announced by the end of this month.