Aer Lingus sells fewer than expected seats on new route

Ireland’s national carrier, Aer Lingus, appears to be selling fewer tickets than originally expected on its new Belfast to London Heathrow route. Flights will commence in January 2008, but Aer Lingus has already been selling tickets for a month. Nevertheless, only 176 passengers have purchased seats on this route. Aer Lingus will offer three daily flights on planes that can seat up to 174 passengers. The situation appears especially problematic when one takes into consideration that the total number of places available numbers over 32,300. Even more troubling for Ireland’s flag carrier, is that rival Ryanair has sold more than 1,100 seats for its Belfast to London Stansted route over the same period of time.

Despite these lackluster sales, Aer Lingus is not worrying yet. It has attributed the situation to the fact that it has yet to fully advertise its new route. Another reason may be that unlike at Stansted—which sees a large proportion of leisurely travelers—many passengers flying to Heathrow are businesspeople and they tend to book their flights no more than two to three weeks in advance of the departure date. In order to improve upon this situation, Aer Lingus will begin a marketing blitz in the coming weeks, spending more than £500,000 on billboards, TV and radio ads in Belfast, and elsewhere in Northern Ireland.

The expansion of Aer Lingus operations at Belfast’s airport will also lead to the creation of about 100 new jobs. Competition, however, will be stiff, with more than 1,000 people who already submitted applications for these positions.

www.aerlingus.com