Aer Lingus has warned that its cost saving programme, named Greenfield, which was to save the airline €97m in costs, may not be enough to secure the future of the airline.
Aer Lingus says that in light of the continued weakness of the Irish economy and pressures on costs, it is assessing whether the Greenfield programme is sufficient to protect profitability or whether future measures are required.
In an interim management statement, Aer Lingus says that despite a difficult start to the year, it will generate an operating profit before exceptional items for 2011, but now at a 'significantly' lower level than in 2010.
The airline says its operating loss before exceptional items for the first three months of the year rose to €53.7m from €37.9m the same time last year as Aer Lingus was hit by the IMPACT cabin crew dispute in January and February, the timing of the Easter holidays and the poor performance of some of its Irish leisure routes.
Revenue for the first quarter fell by 4.8% despite an 11% reduction in capacity.
April passenger numbers rose 19% from a year ago helped by the comparison with the previous period when ash from an Icelandic volcano closed Irish and UK airspace and the occurence of the Easter holidays in April. Last month's load factor - a measure of how well a carrier is selling available seats - decreased by 4.9 points to 70.9%.
Aer Lingus also said today it expected to take delivery of a fourth, finance-leased A320 by the end of June with no further fleet additions planned for the remainder of this year.
Aer Lingus has exercised an option with Airbus to defer an order for three A330 aircraft originally scheduled for delivery in 2013 and 2014. Instead, the company will take delivery of three A350 aircraft but not before 2018.
