O'Leary flying high despite Aer Lingus loss

One More Thing:Michael O'Leary was in flying form in Dublin yesterday as he gave his favourite hobbyhorse - aviation regulation - a run-out.

His chipper mood belies the fact that Ryanair is currently sitting on a €60 million-plus paper loss from its 29.44 per cent stake-building in Aer Lingus over the past 12 months.

Shares in Aer Lingus dipped below €2 for the first time this week and have lost about one-third of their value since January, when Ryanair's takeover bid was in full flight.

"We are celebrating the fall in value of our investment in Aer Lingus," O'Leary said, tongue firmly in cheek.

"It's an accurate reflection by the market of the performance of the board of Aer Lingus over the past 12 months.

"[ When defending the takeover bid] the Aer Lingus board told us they had exciting plans for the airline and that it was set for rapid growth. Instead, they've cut the Dubai route [ launched in March 2006] . . . and there's been repeated strikes and industrial relations chaos."

O'Leary said Ryanair's paper loss was a "small price to pay" for the pleasure of knowing that Aer Lingus's pilots and their pension fund are themselves under water to the tune of about €20 million on their stake-building in the national airline.

"That fills me with no end of joy," said O'Leary, who has always refused to negotiate with the pilots' union, Ialpa.

Ryanair is in for the long haul and O'Leary said he was confident that the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg would overturn the European Commission's decision to block its takeover of Aer Lingus. "Aer Lingus is too small and too high cost to survive as an independent airline. Eventually, Aer Lingus will be taken over and the most likely candidate to take it over is Ryanair."