A threat of strike action by Aer Lingus pilots led to a drop in the airline’s passengers numbers in June.
Despite the walkouts being averted, overall carryings fell by 1.7% to 925,000 in the month compared to June last year.
Long haul passenger numbers were down by 4.3% year on year to 88,000 while short haul dropped by 1.4% to 837,000.
“Booked passenger numbers were negatively impacted in June 2011 by uncertainty over scheduled services caused by the threat of industrial action by pilots’ trade union IALPA-IMPACT,” the airline said.
The airline’s load factor dropped by 2.1 percentage points to 80%.
The Aer Lingus regional arm saw carryings rise by 70% to 70,000 over June 2010’s figure of 41,000.
This is the second time this year that industrial disputes have hit the airline’s traffic. A combination of cabin crew walkouts and capacity cuts saw passenger numbers fall 17% in January 2011.