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Revenue from short-haul passenger fares increased by 4.9% to €249.3m, even though passenger numbers decreased by 5.6% because of a reduction in services from Gatwick.

Long-haul passenger fares revenue increased by 7.7% to €97.9m for the quarter.

The budget airline has said that growth from passenger revenue is due to the consumer trend to book last-minute flights.

Aer Lingus reduced its passenger capacity over the past year to "better match market demand," it said.

In the first nine months of 2010, short-haul revenues increased by 1.3% to 570.3 million euros, while long-haul revenues decreased by 2.8% to 211.5 million euros.

The airline said that passenger numbers declined by 7.9% due to the effects of the ash cloud crisis in March of this year, coupled with the airline's capacity reductions at Gatwick airport.

Christoph Mueller, chief executive of Aer Lingus, said: "Our performance in the third quarter and year to date is a very significant improvement on 2009 and strongly supports our strategy.

"However, we remain cautious on the outlook for 2011 given concerns about the durability of the recent aviation sector performance as well as continuing economic uncertainty in our primary markets.

"I would like to express my appreciation to all our staff for the hard work and commitment applied in achieving this result."

Aer Lingus appointed TradeDoubler as its affiliate marketing partner in April this year, to help grow its online marketing activity across Europe.