The airline names are sometimes pretty obvious, when they are called British Airways, Iberia o Air France, Lufthansa has an easy meaning being in german. But Aer Lingus?….for example. Does anyone know the real origen of the name and meaning?. Aer is supposed to be Air in gaelic, but lingus?….Shamrock perhaps?.
By: steve rowell - 3rd September 2007 at 01:33
Did you know that Etihad means “United” and that Cathay Pacific means “China Pacific”??
By: keltic - 3rd September 2007 at 00:13
yes….too slow in answering. Thanks BX737.
By: BX737 - 1st September 2007 at 10:55
Aviaco was a shortened form of Aviacion y Commercio and Spantax is the shortened form of Spanish Air Taxis
By: Ren Frew - 26th February 2007 at 12:53
Spanair reminds me of the old airline Spantax, which in turn always conjured up images of Spandex!
What about Aviaco… What did that mean ?
By: mongu - 26th February 2007 at 12:40
Spanair reminds me of the old airline Spantax, which in turn always conjured up images of Spandex!
By: keltic - 24th February 2007 at 10:39
Thank guys. It´s a pretty obvious meaning too. Any other name with an unreasonable name?. Spanair…..no from Spain Air…no, no. Comes from SPAN….yes, they want to SPAN to the AIR…..wowww. Silly name indeed.
By: Ren Frew - 23rd February 2007 at 14:59
From wikipedia:
The name, Aer Lingus is an anglicisation of the Irish form Aer Loingeas which means Air Fleet (as do Aeroflot and Lufthansa)
This is taken from the book ‘Pioneers in Aviation, Aer Lingus and the story of Aviation in Ireland’ by Niall G Weldon…
“I have been asked occasionally about the origin of the name ‘Aer Lingus’. It derives from the Irish translation of ‘air’ and ‘fleet’ or ‘air’ and ‘ship’ . ‘Aer’ is of course ‘Air’ whilst ‘loingeas’ and ‘long’ are Irish for ‘fleet’ and ‘ship’ respectively. Tomas de Bhaldraithe in his English-Irish Dictionary translates ‘Airfleet’ as ‘Aerloingeas’. The word ‘Lingus’ is not found in any Irish dictionary and we can only assume that ‘Lingus’ is a corruption of the word ‘Loingeas’.
As far as I am aware there is no definite record as to which person or persons designated ‘Aer Lingus’ to be the name of the national airline. I would suspect however, that one of the airlines founding fathers and also it’s chairman Sean O’ Huadhaigh would have had an involvement in it. His name appearing on the first Aer Lingus letterhead, and being a gaelic scholar to boot, I think a strong case can be argued in his favour for creating the name.”
By: SHAMROCK321 - 23rd February 2007 at 14:36
Spot on.
By: gary o - 23rd February 2007 at 13:57
From wikipedia:
The name, Aer Lingus is an anglicisation of the Irish form Aer Loingeas which means Air Fleet (as do Aeroflot and Lufthansa)
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February 23, 2007 at 1:55 pm