Aer Lingus rethinks cabin design as leisure rebounds past business

Aer Lingus chief executive Lynne Embleton. Photo: Naoise Culhane

John Mulligan Twitter Email

March 09 2023 02:30 AM

Business class seats on Aer Lingus transatlantic flights are increasingly being snapped up by holidaymakers splashing out on upgrades as a recovery in leisure travel outpaces that among corporate passengers, according to chief executive Lynne Embleton.

The trend could make the IAG-owned airline reconsider how it configures seat classes on its aircraft.

“Our business cabins are actually doing well in terms of seat factors – we’re filling the seats well,” she told the Irish Independent. “But we’re filling them with premium leisure – people who want to pay a little bit more to have a better in-flight experience, more legroom. We’ve been able to tap into that quite well. Business travel doesn’t equal business cabin.”

Aer Lingus has a record 2.25 million seats on sale for its transatlantic services this summer. But corporate travellers who grew used to online meetings during the pandemic have been slower to get back on planes, despite senior executives consistently extoling the virtues of face-to-face meetings in cementing business relationships and deals.

“We suffered massively during Covid and so did other industries,” said Ms Embleton. “I think in Ireland, people have been slower to come back into the office than in many other countries.”

“I believe that will impact the dynamics of travel,” she added. “As industries and companies have their own travel budgets, I suspect 2022 took some of them by surprise. We’re aware of some corporates that had spent their travel budget much earlier than they were expecting to. Let’s hope they reset their travel budgets.”

She said changing trends will also make the carrier assess how its seats are configured.

“That’s absolutely the kind of thing you look at,” she said. “There’s a lead time in all of this. As we think about the next generation of airplanes in the fleet, then you look at configurations and how to optimise floorspace. Floorspace is your asset. It’s not something that you can chop and change over night.”

She added: “But absolutely, [you look at] the dynamics of different yields from different segments, different demand from different segments, but at the same time, wanting to keep your operations relatively simple. You don’t want lots of substrates because that just drives complexity into your operation and it can be a false economy.”