Aer Lingus sells less than a third of new Belfast flights in December
26.01.08
Aer Lingus sold less than a third of the seats on its new Belfast International Airport routes in December, according to figures released by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Analysts say the figures raise serious question marks over Aer Lingus' commercial reasoning for the move. The performance was described as 'truly shocking' by one analyst, who added: 'You'd expect them to be bad starting out, but not nearly as bad as this.'
The CAA said that Aer Lingus filled just 32% of the 21,576 Belfast seats available in December.
Its route to Amsterdam, which has 14 weekly flights, was the worst performer, with just 27% of seats filled. Barcelona the best performer, where 44% of seats on the 5 weekly flights were filled, while twice-weekly flights to Geneva were 39% full.
Aer Lingus' controversial Heathrow flight did not start until mid January, and so is not included in the numbers. However, rival airline Ryanair claimed that sales were equally bad on that route, at least on the inaugural flight.
An analysts said of the results: 'To me, it just looks like they got the numbers wrong. When you launch a new base, you have to give flights away to get people on planes and get the route established. Aer Lingus clearly didn't do that.' However, another said that the December performance should not be judged too harshly, adding: 'routes like Amsterdam would have a heavy business element and you don't get a lot of business travel in December.'
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