{"id":677182,"date":"2026-11-06T23:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T23:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/677182\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T23:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T23:12:18","slug":"aer-lingus-profits-slump-by-e28m-as-airline-plans-capacity-and-job-cuts-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/677182\/","title":{"rendered":"Aer Lingus profits slump by \u20ac28m as airline plans capacity and job cuts \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aer Lingus<\/a> has reported operating profit of \u20ac142 million for the third quarter of 2026, down \u20ac28 million year on year.<\/p>\n

During the first nine months of the year, operating profits at the International Airlines Group<\/a>-owned airline have fallen by 57 per cent, down from \u20ac250 million to \u20ac108 million.<\/p>\n

Aer Lingus chief executive Lynne Embleton<\/a> said increased competition, particularly in the North Atlantic region, \u201chas fundamentally changed our operating environment\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said to address these challenges, the airline must focus on \u201creducing our costs and improving efficiency and productivity\u201d.<\/p>\n

The trading update from Aer Lingus said it has faced higher supplier and carbon costs and \u201csignificantly increased fuel costs\u201d this year. <\/p>\n

Aer Lingus said it expected to face these higher costs \u201cthrough the airline\u2019s upcoming seasonally weaker quarters and through 2027\u201d .<\/p>\n

\"\"British Ambassador to Ireland Kara Owen on current Anglo-Irish relations, trade opportunities, and the possibility of a Brexit reversal<\/p>\n

To counter the impacts of the elevated costs, Aer Lingus plans to implement \u201cnetwork and organisation design changes\u201d to reduce costs, which are expected to lead to an improvement in its operating margin. <\/p>\n

Aer Lingus has plans to reduce flying capacity by 6 per cent, a removal of lower-margin flying and proposed reductions of 500 roles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Embleton said in a call with media on Friday morning that department-by-department talks over reducing the headcount were ongoing and could be concluded this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big restructuring [of the company\u2019s head office]. We\u2019re a long way down those conversations, which is at department-by-department level, and we\u2019ve had expressions of interest for voluntary severance within that and we\u2019re working through that process. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do hope that will be, if not done, largely done by the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embleton said Aer Lingus had received \u201ca lot of expressions of interest for voluntary redundancy\u201d from cabin crew and \u201csignificant applications\u201d from pilots since their own expression of interest procedure started a week ago.<\/p>\n

She could not clarify how many expressions of interest the company has received in the redundancy programme.<\/p>\n

The cost-cutting measures are aimed at delivering an operating margin of 12 per cent to 15 per cent at the airline, which Embleton said is required to secure investment and support future growth. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe must adapt as a business to a competitive environment that is here to stay regardless of any future changes to fuel costs. Achieving this is critical to avoiding any further reduction in our flying capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added management, unions and staff must \u201cwork together constructively\u201d to put the airline in a position to manage the new competitive environment. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is essential in order to achieve an operating margin which will give us the investment needed to grow in the interest of all of our stakeholders.\u201d <\/p>\n

On Thursday, almost 30 flights across Europe were affected by \u201choax\u201d bomb threats<\/a>, including an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome that was diverted to an airfield in northern France.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult for our crew and our customers when an event like that happens,\u201d Embleton said. \u201cI think our crew behaved with impeccable professionalism. We are very proud of how they handled it.\u201d<\/p>\n

International Airlines Group chief executive Luis Gallego added the airline industry was \u201csuffering\u201d as a result of these incidents. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing we can do is to follow the protocols,\u201d Gallego said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have any other alternative than to follow the procedures. It\u2019s easy to disrupt the operation with all these threats, but we don\u2019t have a way to discriminate if something is true or is not true.\u201d <\/p>\n

Further details in the trading update said Aer Lingus passenger numbers rose by 1.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2026, compared with the same period last year.<\/p>\n

It added competitive market conditions and a weaker yield environment had \u201climited the airline\u2019s ability to offset higher fuel and other operating costs\u201d. <\/p>\n

During the third quarter, the airline announced some initiatives to raise further revenue, which included provision of Starlink<\/a> wifi on its services. Starlink is now provided on almost all long-haul Aer Lingus flights and will at a later date be provided on short-haul services. <\/p>\n

The airline also said next year it would begin to retrofit 10 Airbus A330 aircraft cabins and introduce a premium economy option for customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aer Lingus has reported operating profit of \u20ac142 million for the third quarter of 2026, down \u20ac28 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[601,72,61,74871,60,74879,1390],"class_list":["post-677182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aer-lingus","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-international-airlines-group","tag-ireland","tag-lynne-embleton","tag-starlink"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}