Aer Lingus Announces Profit

Aer Lingus has today announced a "small" operating profit in a trade update.

The company revealed that as a result of cost and capacity management actions last year the Group expected to report a small operating profit, before exceptional items, for the second half of 2009.

In a statement today on the company's website, the state sponsored carrier said the performance primarily reflected better than expected figures in the second half of 2009, which had been driven by the removal of its long haul aircraft in September and tactical route cancellations in November.

However, despite the positive news, a spokesman said Aer Lingus anticipated demand will remain soft for the first six months of 2010 and the Group had decided to implement changes to its London Gatwick Base.

"Effective 31 March 2010, Aer Lingus will reduce capacity at the base from five to three Airbus A320 aircraft. The three aircraft will continue to serve three existing routes to Malaga, Dublin and Knock and a new route to Cork," the Aer Lingus spokesman said.

The airline also said it had reached agreement with Airbus on the deferral of two A320 aircraft originally due for delivery in October and November 2010 to April and May 2011, respectively.

The revised delivery schedule is in addition to earlier deferrals previously announced by the Group in 2009. The company said it had negotiated the revised delivery schedule at no additional cost to the Group.

The news comes as the airrline's chief competitor Ryanair yesterday released figures showing that December traffic for the budget carrier had grew 12% to 4.9m, while annual traffic grew 13% to 65.3m for 2009.

Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said it expected its cash reserves of €2.5bn to grow 'substantially' by March 2013 due to the cutback in spending.

(DW/GK)