Aer Lingus (, ) (a phonetic English rendition of the Irish Aer-Loingeas, "air fleet") is the national flag carrier of Ireland. Headquartered at Dublin Airport, it operates a fleet of Airbus aircraft serving Europe, North America and northern Africa. It is Ireland's oldest and second largest airline after Ryanair. 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 codeshares with Oneworld, Star Alliance and SkyTeam members, as well as interline agreements with Aer Arann and JetBlue Airways. Aer Lingus will, from 28 March 2010 operate a daily Madrid-Washington Dulles flight in conjunction with United Airlines. It will be Aer Lingus' first Transatlantic route not originating in Ireland. The company employs 4,000 people and in 2008 had revenues of €1.4 billion. Aer Lingus flew 10 million passengers in 2008. 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 airline is 29.4% owned by Ryanair and 25.4% owned by the Government of Ireland. 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).

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