Aer Lingus says its total booked passenger numbers, including its regional operations, rose by 1.6% in October.

However, excluding the regional services the airline's passenger numbers slipped 0.1% to 907,000 from 908,000 the same time last year. Its regional services saw passenger numbers increase by 30% to 69,000 last month.

The airline's short-haul numbers were in line with last year's at 831,000 while its long-haul passenger numbers fell by 1.3% to 76,000 from 77,000.

Its load factor in October increased by 2.1 points to 78.5%. The airline's short-haul booked load factor increased to 81% with capacity rising by 0.8%. Long-haul booked loan factor rose to 73.1% with capacity decreasing by 3.9%.

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