LONG HAUL FLIGHTS appear to be growing in popularity – at least for Aer Lingus, which has seen a 20 per cent increase in the amount of passengers on such flights.

In its latest traffic statistics for the month of May 2013, Aer Lingus Group plc said that total flown passenger numbers, including Aer Lingus Regional operations, increased by 5.3 per cent to 1,021,000 in May 2013 compared to May 2012.

With short haul passengers, including Aer Lingus Regional, the total came to 914,000 in May, an increase of 3.7 per cent on May 2012.  Meanwhile, long haul flown passengers in May 2013 were 107,000, an increase of 20.2 per cent on May 2012.

Aer Lingus said that the airline’s mainline flown passenger load factor in May 2013 increased by 3.6 points on May 2012 to 79.8 per cent. Short haul flown load factor was 77.2 per cent, an increase of 3.4 points on May 2012, with capacity decreasing by 1.8 per cent.

Long haul flown load factor was 84.4 per cent, an increase of 2.9 points on May 2012, with capacity increasing by 16.8 per cent on the prior year.

The figures are a boost for the company, which said in April that passenger numbers had taken a nose dive. At the time, it blamed the bank holiday weekend for a 2.5 per cent drop in passengers.

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