AER LINGUS has decided to cut five routes and remove one of its three aircraft from its Belfast base over the winter months in response to poor consumer demand.
The airline also plans to remove “at least one aircraft” from its Dublin schedule over the winter.
But Aer Lingus said the aircraft and most of the routes in Belfast would be restored from March 1st next and it would begin selling seats on these services in about three weeks’ time.
“We haven’t decided what we will come back with yet but we will have three aircraft in Belfast from the 1st of March ,” explained Enda Corneille, Aer Lingus’s director of corporate affairs.
Aer Lingus plans to drop the Belfast-Milan route in September with services to Faro, Paris, Barcelona and Rome going in October.
“There’s a reality out there in the market around [consumer] spending that you can’t get away from,” Mr Corneille said.
Its flights to Heathrow, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Malaga and Munich will continue to operate during the winter.
Mr Corneille rejected the suggestion that this was a signal of Aer Lingus’s intention to wind down its base in Belfast, which was only opened in late 2007 and was the airline’s first outside the Republic.
“This underlines our commitment to Belfast because this is the right capacity for the winter,” Mr Corneille said. “Our target was to reach break-even this year and to be in profit next year and that’s still our view. This is a strong portfolio for the winter.”
Mr Corneille said no staff would lose their jobs in Belfast as a result of these moves.
