Takeover saga likely to continue for some time yet

The newsflow is generally pretty slow in the month of August.

It doesn’t take much for journalists to sit up and take notice of even the most throwaway remark. Etihad Airways chief executive James Hogan certainly garnered top billing yesterday with a comment made to Bloomberg.

Asked whether he would be interested in buying Ryanair’s stake in Aer Lingus, he replied: “We would be very happy to have that conversation. Dublin is a strong, profitable route for us and we’re very keen to strengthen our partnership there.”