Aer Lingus may move its operations to the United Kingdom — either to London or Belfast — in order to cut costs and stave off union problems.

Travel to Ireland is on a downward curve this year. Tourism Ireland reports that “the first 10 months of 2009 have proven to be a very tough period for tourism to the island of Ireland, and for tourism worldwide.”

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary plans to charge passengers who forget to print out their own boarding cards $150 – 150 percent the current $60 fee for forgetfulness. O’Leary claimed the fee increase would help eliminate the number of passengers who show up at check-in desks without their boarding pass.

Aer Lingus has decided to cut the number of A330 aircraft it uses on long haul flights to reduce costs as passengers numbers are down on transatlantic flights for the third quarter of this year.

A sudden family death in Ireland, an upcoming wedding and all kinds of emotional upheaval. Irish Voice reporter April Drew has had an eventful week, and here, as she prepared to leave New York for Ireland, she describes the sad scenes at the JFK departure lounge.

Irish tourists are still traveling to New York City in droves despite the recession. Tourist organization NYC Visit has reported that they expect the number of Irish visitors to the city to drop by just 5 percent this year.

Aer Lingus has proposed to terminate the direct New York to Shannon route early next year. In further cost cutting attempts, the Irish airline plans to remove its U.S. base at Shannon airport, resulting in a loss of 102 cabin crew positions.

Aer Lingus has announced its cutbacks in its plan to drastically reduce operating costs, though the expected changes in its American routes have not yet been declared.

Aer Lingus is expected to announce major changes on its Atlantic routes. An annoucement is expected this week and there is mounting speculation that the airline will scale back its New York Dublin service to one flight a night.

Aer Lingus is offering a ridiculously good luxury package for a week's vacation in Ireland but hurry, you need to book by October 9. The new fare is $499 and includes - are you sitting

  Introduction Ireland is an island on the western fringe of Europe between latitude 51 1/2 and 55 1/2 degrees north, and longitude 5 1/2 to 10 1/2 degrees west. Its greatest length, from Malin Head in the north to Mizen Head in the south, is 486 km and its greatest width from east to west is approximately 275

With news that Aer Lingus’ first-half losses almost quadrupled last year’s comes reports that Ireland’s second biggest airline may give up on Ireland-U.S. flights.

The Moran clan have produced some very interesting folk. The anglicized "Moran" can be traced to multiple distinct Irish names, and though commonly linked to County Mayo, forms of the name originated throughout middle Ireland in Counties Leitrim, Galway, Kildare, Offaly, and more. Moran is so heavily anglicized - from the French "Morrin" to the Irish "Moran" - that exact knowledge of each Moran's lineage may be hard to trace.

Aer Lingus has won a huge new deal flying civil servants between Belfast and London. The new deal means Aer Lingus will be the sole carrier for the Northern Ireland Civil Service for the next two years.

Irish airline Aer Lingus has named German Christoph Mueller as its new chief executive to take post on October 1. After a three-month long search for a new CEO after the resignation of Dermot Mannion, Mueller comes as a surprise external appointment for the Irish company.

Hundreds of Irish fans have joined the crowds descending on the City of Angels to say farewell to the king of pop. Aer Lingus was said to have completely sold out all flights from Dublin to Los Angeles for today and yesterday as heartbroken fans made their way from Ireland to the West Coast. The special memorial service has been totally over subscribed with more than 1.6 million people registering for just 9,000 tickets.

The large scale of the annual Peter Smith Feis reflects Smith’s contribution to Irish dance. Not only is his school one of the biggest on the east coast, Smith himself has actively influenced the direction of Irish dance in the U.S., bringing in a style in the 1950s that has held sway ever since.

In a bid to cut costs during weak economic conditions and in response to a decrease in consumer demand, Aer Lingus has announced cuts in services between the U.S. in Ireland during its upcoming winter schedule.

Giovanni Trappatoni's men were in good spirits after drawing 1-1 with Bulgaria last Saturday night.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese and Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen led a string of tributes to the memory of the three young doctors, all friends and one a former Riverdance star, who are missing feared dead in the Air France trans-Atlantic disaster. McAleese said, “My thoughts and prayers, and the thoughts of everyone, are with the Irish families and the families of everyone on board at this very difficult time.”

Three Irish people were on board the Air France plane which disappeared over the Atlantic overnight. The plane is feared to have crashed in the Atlantic with 228 people aboard after losing power in a massive thunderstorm high above the ocean. The flight left Rio de Janiero at 5pm EST yesterday and was due to arrive into Paris at 4.15am EST.

There's never been a better time to visit Ireland. That's the news from the Emerald Isle where the downturn is making an Irish vacation a terrific deal. Both travel and services are suddenly much cheaper, and the current theme in Ireland’s tourism ads is “Ireland: More for Less.”

Cathal Dervan on the only man who could make an Ipswich Town football club press briefing compulsive viewing for the cream of England’s journalistic crop. The one and only Roy Keane.

To celebrate the March 15 launch of IrishCentral.com and to encourage people to visit the first global website "for everything Irish, for everyone Irish," we opened up the vault and held a big contest with a single grand prize - and a great one. Now, here's our winner...

A deich, a naoi, a hocht, a seacht, a sé, a cúig, a ceathair, a trí, a dó, a haon ... Liftoff! Yes, according to NASA, it won't be long before an Irish native — very possibly an

The CEO of the Irish airline leaves the company at a very difficult time.

The Irish airline saw a surge in bookings in March, as it cuts fares aggressively

Cathal Dervan's day on Saturday was almost as dramatic as that of the Irish Rugby team and Bernard Dunne.

Thanks to you, IrishCentral.com had the happiest St. Patrick’s Day we could have

Galway city is a prime example of how the arts have help transform a once sleepy town into a thriving European cultural center. Last week the 30th annual Galway Arts Festival descended on the city of the tribes, and the unseasonably rainy streets were transformed by a riotous outdoor international carnival with all the sights and sounds to match. CAHIR O'DOHERTY reports from the fastest growing city in Europe, where lively arguments about the future of the Irish theatre are now as common as the next shower of rain.

THE 27th annual Milwaukee Irish Fest closed out Sunday night literally with a bang with the usual fireworks display over the Lake Michigan shores alongside the Henry W. Maier Festival Park. Usually it provides the final memory for those who stick it to the very end of the four-day event every August that represents the largest Irish festival in the world on the spacious and convenient grounds just made for an outdoor summer festival that has attracted 140,000 in the past for Irish Fest.

ROBERT De Niro is one of the most famous Italians to ever grace the silver screen, but believe it or not, according to the man himself, he's also Irish - yes, Irish! Traveling home from Ireland on Monday via Aer Lingus and perusing the airline's Cara magazine, an interview with De Niro, star of such classics as Raging Bull and Goodfellas, was notable for its last few paragraphs - the star fondly recalling a teenage trip to Ireland, and a vow to properly research his Irish roots.

In 1962, when he was 19, De Niro hitchhiked around Ireland, and even though the trip took place all those years ago, he still recalls the details as if it happened yesterday.

"I hitchhiked from Dublin to Galway," he said.

Peter Gallagher is starring alongside Morgan Freeman and Frances McDormand in Clifford Odete's The Country Girl on Broadway. The multi-talented star talks to CAHIR O'DOHERTY about his Irish background, his career and sharing the stage with two Oscar winners.

BACK in the late 1970s when Peter Gallagher was starring as Danny Zuko in the musical Grease on Broadway, he invited his beloved parents Mary and Tom to see the show.

GAELIC Storm will be returning to Manhattan on the heels of their best-selling CD, What's the Rumpus. It recently debuted at the top spot on Billboard's World Music Chart and got the top sales spot on iTunes in the same category.

They will play the Blender Theater at Gramercy Park, 127 East 23rd Street, on Friday, September 19.

Having the good fortune to contribute photographs to Irish America, I would on occasion drop a not-so-subtle hint to editor Patricia Harty, that I was always available to travel to Ireland. As Irish luck would have it aided and abetted by Ms. Harty's generosity a spot was arranged for me on a very special trip: the Irish America/CIE Tour which took place this past October.

Dublin: The wind and rain lashed furiously on the tarmac at Dublin Airport, rocking our Aer Lingus Airbus like a gondola exposed to the elements on a mountaintop. We hadn't packed any sun block for this post-Christmas 2000 family trip to Ireland, but no one had told us we'd be landing in the monsoon season. It had proved impossible to land at Shannon Airport in the west, where the storm was said to be really raging.

Ireland is a small country that's big on charm, wit and hospitality. And, thanks to a booming economy and the infusion of millions from multi-national companies, Ireland East and Dublin is one of the most rapidly expanding areas in Europe today. Ireland has breathtaking scenery, luxurious five-star resorts with world-class spas, gourmet cuisine and more than 400 top-notch golf courses, but the Emerald Isle is also known for its advanced networking, conferencing and exposition facilities and is a leading destination for today's mobile business traveler.

Ryanair says it carried just over four million passengers last month, an increase of 11 percent from January last year. But the load factor, or percentage of seats filled, remained stable at 69 percent. On Monday, Ryanair reported a loss of €102 million for the third quarter to the end of December, but raised its full-year outlook to a profit from break-even, due to lower fuel costs.

Aer Lingus, in joint partnership with United Airlines, plans to provide daily flights between Washington, D.C. and Madrid commencing next year, taking advantage of the Open Skies Air Services Agreement between the European Union and the U.

An eagerly-awaited live television confrontation between Aer Lingus chief Dermot Mannion and his opposite number at rival airline Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, was called off by RTE following intervention by the Irish Takeover Panel. Both men had confirmed they would appear on the current affairs show "Prime Time" on Tuesday but withdrew just hours before the scheduled screening after they were directed by the Takeover Panel not go ahead. The panel said in a letter to RTE that the direction was issued under 1997 legislation.

News From Ireland

Cowen Replaces Ahern as Prime Minister

Brian Cowen has replaced Bertie Ahern as leader of the Fianna Fil party. The Laois-Offaly Dil deputy also assumed the office of Taoiseach when Ahern stood down on May 6 following his address to the joint Houses of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Aer Lingus has reversed an earlier decision to end flights between Shannon Airport and London Heathrow and will resume the service from March 29, with one-way introductory fares available at €19.99.

The airline's chief executive Dermot Mannion rejected claims that the move was in response to a government threat to sell its 25 percent shareholding to Ryanair if the Shannon link wasn't reopened.

AER Lingus ended its daily Shannon to London Heathrow flights on Sunday, and began its controversial new service from Belfast International Airport to Heathrow the following day.Aer Lingus will now operate three flights a day from Belfast to Heathrow, and the airline has set a goal of transporting 500,000 passengers from Belfast to all of its new destinations from the city by the end of the year."I remain very confident.

AER Lingus has hailed a new deal with American low-fares flier JetBlue as a major advance for passengers on both sides of the Atlantic.What they called an industry-first "strategic partnership" was announced last week and will begin operating on April 3.The deal will give Aer Lingus passengers 40 new target destinations in addition to the seven U.

AER Lingus and United Airlines announced that they will commence a codeshare agreement that will enable seamless booking on each other's flights from November 1, 2008. The agreement was signed by Aer Lingus CEO Dermot Mannion and United Airlines CEO Glenn Tilton in Chicago. The codeshare agreement will cover all seven of Aer Lingus' U.

RECORD numbers of Irish are visiting the U.S. Lured by the tumbling dollar and steep markdowns in goods and services, no less than 491,000 Irish tourists visited in 2007, many for the first time, according to figures compiled by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in Dublin.

AER Lingus increased their fuel surcharge, effective Wednesday, May 14 on all trans-Atlantic flights by up to 30 percent in an effort to combat the rising price of oil and the airline's rising fuel bill.Passengers traveling between Dublin or Shannon and New York, Chicago, Washington and Boston will now be required to pay an additional ?65 ($100) each way onto the price of their ticket. Up to now passengers were expected to pay ?100 ($155) round trip.

AER Lingus is to suspend flights on its Dublin-Los Angeles route from November 2. The company has cited "unprecedented increases in fuel costs, the weak dollar and slowing economies."Capacity is also being reduced on other long-haul routes by 15% this winter.

HUNDREDS of Irish students are in dire straits lacking accommodation and jobs and seeing their summer dreams of New York disappear.They have been turning up in their droves at the Aisling Irish Center in Yonkers, New York seeking accommodation and jobs and overwhelming the staff there. Student Cormac Glynn, 21, sleeps on the floor of a one-room apartment with five others.

Aer Lingus, facing a likely $145 million loss in 2009 mainly because of fuel prices, is targeting areas of operation where it can make stringent cost-saving measures.

Trans-Atlantic routes could be for the axe, at least on a temporary basis.

Already the company has decided to suspend its Dublin to Los Angeles flights this winter and to cut three short-haul services within Europe.