Aer Lingus Group plc has announced its traffic statistics for the month of February 2015.

Overall passenger load factor for the month was up 1.9 percentage points to 69.2%. The short load factor increased 1.6 percentage points to 70.3%, whilst the long haul load factor increased by 3.0 percentage points to 67.7%.

The short haul load factor improvement in February reflects capacity reductions related to planned network adjustments to protect margins given seasonal demand conditions.

The total number of passengers carried during the month of February 2015 was 627,000, including Aer Lingus Regional. This compares with a total of 640,000 passengers in February 2014.

Long haul traffic continued to increase, up by 21.7% to 56,000 passengers in February 2015, compared to 46,000 in the same month in 2014.

Short haul traffic for February 2015 was down 2.9%, with 497,000 short haul passengers carried compared to 512,000 in February 2014.