Aer Lingus has reported losses of €140m for last year. This is a major turnaround from the previous year when the airline made a profit of €72m.
The loss for last year includes an exceptional charge of €104m, mainly linked to the cost of making 2,000 workers redundant.
But the airline was also badly hit in its operations, losing over €50m. This was due to a combination of factors including the foot and mouth crisis and the September 11 terrorist attacks which caused a 4.6% fall in passenger numbers to 6.6 million.
In a statement, the company said that while much progress had been made on its survival plan, a lot more needed to be done, including the removal of another €130m from its cost structure.
Chief executive Willie Walsh told RTE radio the 'vast bulk' of these would come from non-staff related costs such as distribution and airport charges, but he later said he was not ruling anything in or out.
The airline also reported improvements at its web site aerlingus.com with a big increase in bookings. It said 20% of seats were now sold through the site, compared with 2% this time last year.
* The airline has announced four new routes from October 27. There will be services from Dublin to Vienna, Prague and Geneva, while a new service from Cork to Malaga is also beginning.
