Aer Lingus Flying High From Belfast: Eventually!

Irish national carrier, Aer Lingus, has said it is pleased that is has achieved a 42% share on the Belfast to London Heathrow route.

Seven months after it began flying between the two cities, the airline says it is well on its way to taking half the market share from BMI.

Aer Lingus Corporate Affairs Director, Enda Corneille, said the figures are excellent and it is well on schedule to achieving 700,000 bookings before its first anniversary on the route.

However, the news will be a relief as just weeks ago, the latest set of figures told a different story.

Aer Lingus insisted in August that its London Heathrow route from a new Belfast 'hub' would remain in action, despite tumbling passenger numbers.

At the time, Aer Lingus Belfast to London passenger numbers were running more than 60,000 behind that of the airline's previously abandoned Shannon to Heathrow link.

Chief Executive Dermot Mannion told BBC Radio Ulster that he was in for the "long haul" and there was no question of pulling out of the route, despite the disappointing numbers recorded and the continuing national and worldwide problems flowing from the credit crunch and the hugely inflated fuel costs now hitting all the airlines.

He was commenting on foot of news that an international 'low-cost' airline had ceased to trade, leaving 100s of passengers expecting to fly to Canada stranded.

The UK-Canadian company Zoom cancelled all flights, blaming escalating costs for some 40,000 would-be passengers losing their bookings after the collapse of the low-cost transatlantic airline.

Zoom blamed its problems on the "horrendous" price of aviation fuel - which had added $50m to annual fuel bills - and the economic slowdown.

See: Zoom Flies Off

See: Aer Lingus will continue flight route to Belfast

See: Aer Lingus' Belfast Move To Spark London Price War