Aer Lingus lost around €150m last year, according to the company's chief executive Willie Walsh.
But he said the airline was on target for substantially reduced losses of €27m this year and might do better than that.
He was speaking after accepting the Airline of the Year award, presented by the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland's Air Transport Users Council.
Walsh said the airline had made a lot of progress since the trauma of September 11, but there was still a lot more to do.
He said the restructuring plan to reduce staff numbers by over 2,000 was nearly complete, with 90% of those taking redundancy already gone from the company.
Mr Walsh also said Aer Lingus was now cash positive at a daily operational level, a substantial recovery from the months after September 11 when the company said it had a cash burn of £2m each day.
He said there was no prospect of the company reopening the transatlantic routes to Baltimore and Newark which it shut after September 11.
