Mannion predicting new year flight bargains

Airline passengers on both sides of the Irish border can look forward to bargain basement prices in the New Year as airlines battle for capacity, the Aer Lingus boss predicted today.

Dermot Mannion said it would be the same story for short-haul routes from Belfast, Dublin and Cork for the first three months of the year.

“We can get the volume but we have to be very competitive on price. It is going to be very competitive in the first quarter of 2009 – there is no doubt about that.”

Despite potential rocky times ahead for the airline industry, he is dismissive of the latest takeover bid by arch rival Ryanair.

“Our attitude is simple. The board has rejected the bid, I don’t think it could be any clearer.”

He said there were several grounds for rejection, foremost the EU ruling at the time of the last bid two years ago that a merger of the airlines would be anti-competitive given the huge share of the short-haul market they would have out of Dublin.

“The re-bid is just an academic exercise,” he said, given that with the disappearance of a number of operators the Ryanair-Aer Lingus share of Dublin flights has grown even bigger.

Aer Lingus today celebrated the first anniversary of the opening of its Belfast operations and the airline chief executive travelled north to declare himself to be “overall, very, very pleased” with how things had gone.

“In a challenging market we have more than held our own,” he said.