The chief executive of Aer Arann says the company has turned a huge corner since it was put in examinership last year, and is now working to get back to sustained profitability.
Paul Schultz was speaking in Shannon, where the airline announced details of a new service five days a week from Shannon to Edinburgh, under its franchise agreement with Aer Lingus Regional.
The new service will begin on March 27. Aer Arann is also increasing its services to Manchester from four to six days a week for its summer service. It also operates services from Shannon to Birmingham and Bristol.
Aer Arann, which employs 370 people, says it hopes to take on an additional 50 staff this year to cater for its increased services.
Mr Schultz also said the airline was still looking at how it would be affected by a recent Government announcement that public service obligations (PSOs) for a number of regional airports including Galway would end.
He said Aer Arann had quite a successful network of services from Galway to London, Manchester and Edinburgh, and was satisfied that there was a market for these.
Aer Lingus cancels US flight due to cabin crew row
Aer Lingus has been forced to cancel a flight to Boston this afternoon due to the cabin crew dispute over new rosters. As yet it is unclear whether further flights will be affected later today.
Last week, the airline warned cabin crew that if they did not operate the new rosters, they would be removed from the payroll.
An Aer Lingus spokesperson has confirmed that a number of staff have now indicated that they are not willing to operate certain flights later today in accordance with disputed new rosters introduced today by the airline.
The cabin crew union, IMPACT, has confirmed that some members of staff have been invited by management to attend individual 'informal' meetings related to this matter.
IMPACT official Christina Carney said staff would attend the meetings accompanied by a union representative.
Earlier, Ms Carney said that her members were continuing to operate their agreed conditions of employment in line with their old rosters.
Cabin crew have argued that the new rosters exceed the scope of the Greenfield cost reduction programme and will cause undue hardship for employees.
