More people fly Aer Lingus in September

A steep rise in long haul business drove up passenger traffic at Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus last month.

The Dublin-based airline said a 27.8% increase in long-distance passenger numbers to 138,000 fuelled a 4.4% total rise in passengers to 922,000 in September. Short-haul traffic lifted 1.2% to 784,000.

Total revenue passenger kilometres rose 13.7% and the group's passenger load factor - which indicates how full its aircraft were - increased 1.6%.

In the year to date, total passenger numbers rose 2.5% to 7.7m.