Aer Lingus expects fares to be broadly flat into next year despite an influx of competition for Irish passengers, its chief executive Lynne Embleton said on Friday.
Ms Embleton was speaking after the airline published third quarter results that showed operating profit at the airline jumped by 22 per cent to €170 million.
The performance represented a €31 million improvement on the year before, which the airline said was driven by “solid revenue performance” and favourable fuel pricing. The result was adjusted to take account of impact of industrial action in 2024.
“I don’t have concerns over the market at all but there is a lot of capacity come into Ireland that we need to absorb,” Ms Embleton said. “That level of growth is over and above what you would normally expect.
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“It’s clear that supply and demand is a bit out of [kilter] in Ireland given how much supply has come into the market. We’re competing for passengers with all the other airlines in the market but we expect fares to be broadly flat.”
Ms Embleton said she was “pleased” with how routes to Cancún and Las Vegas are performing and that other winter sun routes may be introduced down the line.
Aer Lingus also said it had received confirmation on Friday that international flights will exempted from air traffic reductions caused by the US government shutdown.
The airline carried 3.48 million passengers in the three months to the end of September, up 3.9 per cent on the same time last year. The airline has carried 8.8 million passengers to date in 2025, 3.5 per cent in advance of last year.
Revenue passenger kilometres, a key industry metric, was up 5.8 per cent during the third quarter to 8.64 million. So far this year, the figure is 6.5 per cent in advance of 2024 at 21.4 billion. That growth is the strongest across the International Airlines Group (IAG) network, of which Aer Lingus is part.
Cumulative operating profit at the airline for the first nine months of the year was €250 million, up €102 million on the year before, also representing a significant improvement on 2024.
IAG said the €102 million increase at Aer Lingus “mainly reflected growth, with the introduction of Airbus A321 XLR aircraft, together with the impact of industrial action in the 2024 comparative period”.
The quarter saw about 6 per cent growth in Aer Lingus’s overall capacity year-on-year as the airline operated its largest ever North American network. This overall increase in capacity, includes a 7 per cent increase on North American routes with Europe up by 4 per cent.
IAG said the passenger load factor on Aer Lingus flights over the first nine months of the year was 80.8 per cent. That was down 0.8 percentage points on last year and the lowest among IAG airlines. Group-wide, the passenger load factor was 85.8 per cent.
Aer Lingus said competitor capacity increased by 13 per cent on North American routes last summer, and by 7 per cent in Europe.
This winter season is seeing further increases in competitor capacity as compared to winter last year, with a 44 per cent increase on North American routes and an 18 per cent increase in Europe, the airline said.
Aer Lingus said new routes to Nashville and Indianapolis over the summer utilised the extended flying range of the three Airbus A321 XLR aircraft that have come into service.
Investment in aircraft continued in the third quarter with Aer Lingus taking took delivery of two more A321 XLR aircraft and announced a new route to Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina, which will start next April.
Aer Lingus also announced increased frequency in summer 2026 on its services from Dublin to New York, Boston, Nashville, Indianapolis and Orlando and from Shannon to Boston. A sixth A321 XLR is expected to be delivered in the coming months.
Aer Lingus has also partnered with Starlink to provide wifi on both North American and European services. The service will begin to be installed on aircraft serving North American and European routes over the next 12 months and will be available free of charge.
IAG said the airline’s new A321 XLR routes to Indianapolis, Nashville and Minneapolis were delivering “good profit improvement”.
It also pointed to the airline’s “ongoing adoption of digital first customer strategy” with the introduction of Google Pay, new app features geared towards its ancillary offerings and a new marketing campaign through the app.
Ground handling and network and scheduling process improvements “helped to deliver another five percentage point increase in punctuality in the third quarter”, the airline said.
IAG itself reported operating profit of €2.05 billion for the third quarter, up 2 per cent and largely in line with estimates, but highlighted continuing weakness in its US point-of-sale economy cabin offering.
Pretax profits fell by 2.1 per cent to €1.87 billion compared with €1.91 billion during the same period last year. IAG also owns British Airways, Iberia and Vueling.
