Sir, – Your Editorial “An unwelcome partner” (September 2nd) ignores the following facts:
1. The EU blocked Ryanair’s third offer for Aer Lingus just five months ago (on February 13th) on the grounds that competition between Ryanair and Aer Lingus has “intensified” over the past seven years. How then can UK regulators claim “a substantial lessening of competition” has taken place?
2. Ryanair’s minority stake clearly hasn’t impeded Aer Lingus’s madcap (and unprofitable) commercial developments in recent years which have included alliances and combinations with United, Jetblue, Etihad, Aer Arann and more recently Virgin.
3. Ryanair’s minority stake clearly hasn’t prevented other airlines investing in Aer Lingus. Etihad has taken a 3 per cent stake and both BA and Air France testified to the UK Competition Commission that while they have no interest in investing in Aer Lingus, Ryanair’s minority stake would not be a barrier.
4. When the EU has already ruled that competition has intensified over the past seven years to the benefit of consumers, it is bizarre and manifestly wrong that a UK quango can rule the polar opposite, in order to compel one Irish airline to divest a minority stake in another non-UK airline which affects less than 1 per cent of UK air passengers without one iota or shred of evidence of consumer harm or material influence, or any lessening of competition.
Imagine how the UK media would react if the Irish competition authorities forced BA to sell its stake in British Midland two years later? Perhaps your paper favours Irish merger policy being dictated to or reinvented with the benefit of years of hindsight. Perhaps in five years’ time they’ll require Denis O’Brien to sell down his 29 per cent stake in INM, where he has considerably more influence than Ryanair has ever had over Aer Lingus? – Yours, etc,
ROBIN KIELY,
Head of Communications,
Ryanair,
Dublin Airport,
Co Dublin.