Etihad Airways today heralded a successful first year of its equity alliance strategy, after a financial reporting season which saw each of the five airlines within the alliance – airberlin, Air Seychelles, Virgin Australia, Aer Lingus and Etihad Airways – announce profitable performance. The airlines’ individual and collective results were boosted by a number of measures, including growing codeshare traffic between their networks, successful joint sales and marketing efforts, and a range of increasing business and cost synergies.

JetBlue Airways and Aer Lingus have signed a codeshare agreement that expands upon the partnership that has linked the two carriers’ networks at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Boston’s Logan International Airport since 2008.

Etihad Airways and Aer Lingus have signed an interline and codeshare agreement which follows the UAE national airline’s recent 2.987 per cent equity purchase in the Irish air carrier. Within the agreement Etihad Airways will place its “EY” code on Aer Lingus flights between Dublin, Manchester and London Heathrow, and destinations in Ireland, the UK, the Channel Islands, Portugal, the Netherlands and the US.

Ryanair has announced its intention to make an all cash offer of €1.30 per share for Aer Lingus Group, valuing the Irish flag-carrier at €694 million. The low-cost carrier outlined plans to make the offer through wholly-owned subsidiary, Coinside.

UAE carrier Etihad Airways confirmed today it had acquired a 2.987 per cent stake in Aer Lingus. The news comes just hours after the carrier picked up four awards at the World Travel Awards Middle East ceremony that took place in Dubai last night.

Irish flag-carrier Aer Lingus has seen annual profits double, but warned higher fuel costs and a growing pension deficit could harm its long-term growth. The carrier made a pre-tax profit of €84.4 million in 2011, up from €27.2 million a year earlier.