Aer Lingus Chief Executive Officer Christoph Mueller on Wednesday criticised Ryanair's latest move in its bid to take over the Irish carrier.

He slammed Ryanair's plans with British airline Flybe Group to create a new Irish carrier called Flybe Ireland if the Aer Lingus deal goes through.

Ryanair would transfer to Flybe Ireland 43 European routes, at least nine Airbus A320 aircraft and an undisclosed number of flight crew, engineers, management and facilities to operate the business.

The strategy would be aimed at maintaining competition in Ireland, which is currently dominated by Ryanair and Aer Lingus.

Ryanair is working to win approval from the European Commission to buy Aer Lingus but the low-cost carrier has been told it needs to make concessions to ensure Irish air travel remains competitive.

Mueller said he believed the proposed Flybe Ireland airline would fail to prevent Ryanair from monopolising the Irish market.

"We question very much that Flybe will be an independent competitor to Ryanair," Mueller told reporters.

"We generally agree that weak airlines should disappear but this proposition turns this entire thing upside down."

He added that plans to transfer part of Ryanair's carrier business to Flybe could not be taken seriously.

"It seems so far-fetched, this proposition, that we don't waste our time in basing things on that," he said. "The entire bid, starting from the price to the construction of the deal, I cannot take really serious."

Alongside the statement, Aer Lingus reported a 41% rise in underlying operating profit in 2012 and raised its dividend to €0.04 per share, up from €0.03 in 2011.

The group posted revenues of €1.4bn for the year to December 31st, up 8.2% compared with 2011, and underlying operating profit of €69.1m, up 40.7 %.

Pre-tax profit dropped 51.9 % to €40.6m due to exceptional items including the cost of restructuring aircraft maintenance operations.

If Ryanair receives the green light to purchase Aer Lingus, it will provide Flybe Ireland with a cash injection of €100m and forward sales cash and liabilities worth around €50m.

Flybe would pay Ryanair €1m for the newly created airline in order to break into the Irish market and reduce its reliance on revenues from Britain.

"Flybe would be delighted to be granted the opportunity to service the Irish aviation market through Flybe Ireland, an airline which would be based in Ireland and dedicated to developing a broad range of scheduled services for business and leisure markets," Flybe's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jim French, said.

He confessed there were "many hurdles to overcome" including regulatory and shareholder approvals before the launch of Flybe Ireland but believed the company was well positioned for such a deal.



RD

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