Airline plans to take on 50 staff
At a tourism conference in Ennistymon, Co Clare, Mr O’Ceidigh confirmed that he remains the majority shareholder in the airline after it recently exited examinership in the High Court.
The Galway native revealed that he had re-mortgaged his home in the past couple of months to keep the airline going.
Mr O’Ceidigh said that following the company exiting examinership with a new investor, the British -based transport logistics group Stobart, “Aer Arann is financially more stable than it ever was. I feel very positive about the future”.
He said that “Aer Arann now has a strong balance sheet, a very strong partner” and stated that the new jobs will be mainly pilot posts, mechanics and engineers.
Referring to the airline’s recent financial difficulties that forced the company into examinership, the former teacher said: “There was no use feeling sorry for myself. I said to myself ‘you are where you are’. I had personal guarantees coming out of my ears with banks because I threw everything in there to keep the company going. I re-mortgaged my house and this is very recent; the last couple of months.”
Mr O’Ceidigh said that he did this “because I had so much belief in the company and the people. I threw my chips on the table and I hoped that someone would buy Aer Arann”.
He told delegates that he has not been involved in the day-to-day running of the airline for the past four -and-a-half years, but stated that a precondition of the investment by Stobart was that “I come back hands-on”.
Mr O’Ceidigh said that Stobart told him “we are not going to invest unless you go back in” and “I’m in there now as executive chairman”.
Aer Arann will continue as a regional airline, he said. “Aer Arann would never be where it is if I focused purely on money.
“The reason why Aer Arann was developed was that Government in 1994 wasn’t focused on developing regional air services,” he added.
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