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Aer Lingus to cut winter flights

Aer Lingus is cutting flights out of Belfast and Dublin this winter as it attempts to cope with the economic downturn and a fall in passengers.

The number of aircraft operating out of Belfast International Airport will be reduced from three to two for four months until the beginning of March 2010.

The airline set up its first UK regional hub in Belfast in December 2007.

Its routes will be cut down to London Heathrow, Malaga, Munich, Lanzarote and Tenerife, which is being added for next winter.

Routes currently in operation that will not function during the winter include Paris, Rome, Milan, Faro and Barcelona.

However, the airline's commercial director Enda Corneille gave a guarantee to the 100 pilots and cabin staff employed in Belfast that their jobs were safe.

'We have no plans for job cuts,' he said.

At least one aircraft is also being taken out of service in Dublin, but which routes will be affected have yet to be decided.

Mr Corneille said: 'We are still committed to Northern Ireland, we still have a huge amount of confidence in the routes, in the network, in the base, but we need to cut our cloth to our means for the winter.

'At a time when customer confidence is at an all-time low and you have finite resources, you have to deploy them where they will generate the most return.'

Source:  RTE news

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