Aer Lingus saw a huge increase in bookings in March, breaking a record of more than 1 million, the Irish airline said Thursday.

This will come as welcome news for the airline, which last month said that it had made a post-tax loss in 2008, and reported that a forecast for a pre-tax profit in 2009 would now not be meet.

In a statement released Thursday, the airline said: "The airline's Web site experienced a huge surge in bookings during March with the highest number of daily visitors recorded on March 10 when almost 250,000 ... logged on to aerlingus.com."

Consumer sentiment remained subdued and it had stimulated demand by cutting ticket prices, the statement continued.

The sharp downturn in bookings which began at beginning of the year, the airline’s Chief Financial Officer Sean Coyle explained to Reuters, meant that it was forced to cut fares aggressively to keep passenger numbers up.