Aer Lingus announce short haul winter schedule from Dublin

Aer Lingus has announced its short haul winter schedule for 2008 from Dublin with a new twice weekly service to the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, along with new winter services to Hamburg and the re-introduction of Newcastle, Salzburg and Agadir.

The new route to Sofia, follows on from the highly popular summer service to the Black Sea resort of Bourgas, launched earlier this year, marking the first scheduled service between Ireland and Bulgaria.

The airline will also extend services between Dublin and Hamburg from summer-only to year-round, as well as re-commencing services to the popular destinations of the winter ski resorts of Salzburg, the winter sun destination of Agadir, Morocco and to Newcastle in the UK. This expansion brings to 50, the total number of routes that Aer Lingus will operate from Dublin this winter.

In addition, the airline will be offering extra frequencies to Paris Charles De Gaulle, Dusseldorf, Wawsaw, Bucharest, Geneva, Milan, Barcelona, Malaga, Lisbon and Manchester.

Commenting on the announcement, Enda Corneille, Corporate Affairs Director, said "We are delighted to announce our second destination to Bulgaria, as well as the extension and re-introduction of a number of our services for the winter. Today's announcement demonstrates our response to the continued consumer demand across our route network and is further testament to our proposition of low fares and great service."

As indicated previously, Aer Lingus has reduced frequency on some of its long haul services out of Dublin and Shannon for the winter months (January to March 2008) due to a planned refurbishment of its long haul aircraft. The company also indicated last week that it is committed to its long haul strategy but due to the unprecedented price of oil will be temporarily suspending its Los Angeles route from 2nd November 2008.