Irish shenanigans

The long running saga of Ryanair’s bid to acquire a controlling shareholding of Aer Lingus is likely to reach its culmination in the next few weeks when the EU makes a final decision on ownership.  It would be a case of at least third time lucky for the Michael O’Leary run airline, previous attempts thwarted by the regulator.

In a bid to pacify the Commission Ryanair has come up with a deal in which Flybe, itself needing a white knight, would acquire a whole bunch of routes from the Irish carrier including aircraft and crews.  It would all be packaged into a new company with a £100m consideration, ultimately to be owned by Flybe.  Besides the balance of Aer Lingus, Ryanair also gains that airline’s Heathrow slots (and with it the Virgin Atlantic domestic wet lease deal).

For its part Aer Lingus says that it wants nothing to do with Ryanair, that competition is the thing with Chief Executive Christoph Mueller unveiling a 40% rise in 2012 profit to €69.1m (£59.7m).

It is thought that one of the O’Leary motives is to change Aer Lingus into a low-cost transatlantic airline with either one of the two Brussels airports, Dublin or Stansted as the key hub. www.ryanair.com www.aerlingus.com

Index/Home page
 

OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum