Aer Lingus is the flag carrier airline of Ireland. Based at Dublin Airport, it operates 41 Airbus aircraft serving Europe, Africa and North America. The airline is 29.4% owned by Ryanair and 25.4% owned by the Irish government; it was floated on the Dublin and London Stock Exchanges on 2 October 2006, following prior government approval (the government previously owned 85% of the airline). Aer Lingus is a former member of the Oneworld airline alliance, which it left on 31 March 2007. While Aer Lingus is not in an alliance it has extensive codeshares with Oneworld and SkyTeam members. The company employs 4,000 people and in 2007 had revenues of €1.3 billion. Aer Lingus transferred 9.3 million passengers in 2007. It has a mixed business model, operating a low fare service on its European and North African routes and full service, two-class flights on transatlantic routes. The company motto is Enjoy your flight.

Early years

Aer Lingus was founded in April 1936 with an authorised capital of £100,000. Pending legislation for Government investment through a parent company, Aer Lingus was associated with Blackpool and West Coast Air Services which advanced the money for the first aircraft, and operated with Aer Lingus under the common title "Irish Sea Airways". Aer Lingus Teoranta was registered as an airline on 22 May 1936. The name, Aer Lingus is an anglicisation of the Irish form Aer Loingeas which means Air Fleet (as does one Russian airline, Aeroflot). The name was originally proposed by Richard F O'Connor, who was Cork County Surveyor at the time, and an aviation enthusiast. Incidentally, Aer Lingus was originally pronounced 'air ling-us' (as the Irish Aer Loingeas is pronounced) and only later did the pronunciation change to the now accepted 'air ling-gus'. Five days after being registered as an airline, its first service began between Baldonnel Airfield in Dublin and Whitchurch in Bristol, England, using a six-seater De Havilland 84 Dragon (registration EI-ABI) (Photo) biplane which was named Iolar (Eagle).

Later that year, the airline acquired its second aircraft, a De Havilland 86 Express (DH86A) named "Éire", a four engined biplane with a capacity of 14 passengers. This aircraft provided the first air link between Dublin and London by extending the Bristol service to Croydon. At the same time, the DH84 Dragon was used to inaugurate an Aer Lingus service on the Dublin-Liverpool route.

The airline was established as the national carrier under the Air Navigation and Transport Act (1936). In 1937, the Irish government created Aer Rianta (now called Dublin Airport Authority), a company to assume financial responsibility for the new airline and the entire country's civil aviation infrastructure. In April 1937, Aer Lingus became wholly owned by the Irish government via Aer Rianta.