‘Airlines cannot put profit before safety’

AIRLINES are taking huge risks if they put financial profit before the safety of their passengers by pushing for a sudden return to the skies, a leading airline owner warned yesterday.

Speaking after another day of torment for the airline industry, CityJet chief executive Geoffrey O’Byrne-White warned against other firms attempting to rush back to scheduled flights.

The airline owner, who is also a qualified pilot, claimed major firms are pressuring industry regulators, ignoring technical experts, and side-stepping scientific evidence in their attempt to return to normality.

And while he emphasised his company’s finances are suffering just as much from the crisis as other firms, Mr O’Byrne-White said it was irresponsible and dangerous to ignore the clear risks of flying while the ash cloud remained.

“They are saying there is no real evidence to support cancellations, but that very statement should be a cause for concern. If you do not understand what is going on then you can’t make decisions quickly.

“There has never been a situation like this before affecting so many hubs in such a densely populated part of the world and I can understand the concerns of commercial entities.

“But the fact is over the last 12 years there have been 60 flights damaged by flying through an ash cloud.

“In some of those cases the evidence isn’t clear to the naked eye, so we need to do what the scientific experts are saying,” he insisted, adding that test flights which are not scientific tests are “useless”.

While CityJet is a relatively small airline, it still operates approximately 600 flights a week to hubs including Dublin, London and Paris.

The Irish-based company is haemorrhaging approximately €1 million a day due to the crisis, a small part of the estimated €200 million being lost by the industry every 24 hours. However, Mr O’Byrne-White said regardless of financial issues there were huge risks with allowing flights to take off under current circumstances, particularly when some are flying with just “visual flight rules” – effectively a pilot’s eye sight – to guide them.

“We have to allow the technical people to certify what is to be done.

“There is always a balance needed to be achieved between safety and efficacy. But that’s not easy when the industry is already quite hostile to regulation, when it is already struggling financially,” he said.

The airline crisis is expected to last until the weekend, causing further havoc to the public and industry alike, a situation the CityJet chief executive said people needed to get used to over the coming months.

However, despite the difficulties, Mr O’Byrne-White said he continues to have “100% faith” in the Irish Aviation Authority and its European equivalent’s safety-first measures.