Job cuts essential, says Aer Lingus chief
Mr Walsh was speaking on RTÉ Radio One's This Week in his first interview since a proposed management buy-out last month.
The board of the company recently approved a restructuring plan which could see 1,300 jobs go.
He said he had to give credit to RyanAir which had transformed air transport and made it more accessible and Aer Lingus was a better airline because of competition.
"Competition works for the benefit of the consumer," he said.
Aer Lingus would never become just another low cost carrier, he said, but would continue to offer the consumer what the consumer demanded.
Between 2001 and 2003 he had reduced the cost base by 30% and this trend would continue, he said. He did not believe the Government would provide the €600 million necessary for the provision of new aircraft "so to ensure that we can grow and provide for the future we have to be profitable."
On reducing staff numbers, he said he didn't believe the company was over-staffed. "Our staff to passenger ratio is out of line with carriers like RyanAir and EasyJet and we have got to accept that we are in competition with carriers like that. So we have to get as close as possible and become as efficient as possible to ensure that we can compete and have a future."
Meanwhile, unions at Aer Lingus want 14.9% of the company transferred to their ownership before they co-operate on the airline's business plan, which involves 1,325 job losses.The airline's largest union, SIPTU, has said Mr Walsh must immediately sign off on an agreement to transfer the shares to the Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOT). SIPTU has said the shares belonged to staff following an agreement drawn up during the last restructuring at the company.
SIPTU has also decided on a protective ballot of its 2,000 members in Aer Lingus for industrial action, and to ask them to support a resolution not to co-operate with any voluntary redundancy deals until there was overall agreement on any future plans for the company.
