O’Leary confident over Aer Lingus bid

Ryanair is confident it can allay competition concerns about its latest bid for rival Aer Lingus, its CEO Michael O’Leary yesterday said, adding the budget airline was also seeking no more than a 25% stake in Stansted Airport.

Ryanair launched its third offer in five years for Aer Lingus in June, a €694m bid that the former state carrier has urged shareholders to reject, while it is also interested in buying a slice of London’s third-biggest airport.

Europe’s competition regulator last week launched an in-depth review of Ryanair’s latest Aer Lingus bid, signalling the airline may have to make big concessions to ease competition concerns or face fresh failure.

“We are confident that the remedies package will be enough to satisfy competition issues,” Mr O’Leary told a news conference in London. “There are 46 cross over routes and we will remedy all of them by getting airlines to come to Dublin and take them over,” he said, referring to routes on which both Ryanair and Aer Lingus operate.

Ryanair is reported to be in talks with more than 10 airlines about selling or leasing all 46 routes to and from Dublin that overlap with Aer Lingus in order to promote its takeover bid.

Ryanair would withdraw planes from the Dublin to London route, freeing up room at Heathrow for airlines such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways, Mr O’Leary said. Slots at Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle would come from Aer Lingus routes.

Ryanair, which already owns 30% of Aer Lingus, had an initial bid turned down in 2007 by the European Commission and dropped a second offer in 2009.

Mr O’Leary also said Ryanair was seeking no more than a 24.9% stake in Stansted Airport and was in talks with “a number of potential bidders” who want the airline involved in a consortium bid for the airport.

British airports operator BAA opened the way for a $2bn (€1.59bn) sale of Stansted at the end of August, with Manchester Airports Group an early front- runner in a bid battle expected to draw US banks, pension funds and Asian operators.

“We want a stake of nothing more than 24.9% in Stansted. It would cause regulatory problems if we were seen to have too large a share in an airport,” Mr O’Leary said as he launched an new Ryanair app. The app allows passengers to access fares, book flights and add optional services. It will cost €3 on iTunes.

— Agencies