Aer Lingus keeps its nose in the air but the upstart suitor won’t go away

MOST of us by now, I suspect, have a Ryanair horror story to tell. Mine involved a late evening flight back from Italy last November which was suddenly cancelled.

That’s an inconvenience. No availability on the next day’s flight and it became a minor crisis. Having checked into a hotel and taken a train the following morning to catch a service from a different airport that did have availability, we presented our bills to Ryanair.

Compensation? You must be joking. After two letters and several conversations with Ryanair staff, all I’ve had back is the cost of the original flight which — having been booked months in advance — was only a fraction of the whopping fare for the new Ryanair booking I had to make.

As for all the other transport costs — not to mention a day’s work lost — nada, nothing, zilch.

Did Michael O’Leary expect us to sit around the poxy terminal for two whole days until the next seats became available, I wonder? Frankly, I could ring his scrawny neck right now.

Don’t get me wrong, though: I’m still flying Ryanair. The downsides are legion: some dubious advertising, off-hand staff, no customer support to speak of, remote airports oftentimes, a five quid charge for the ‘privilege’ of using your credit or debit card.

But look at the prices! And when the flights aren’t cancelled — which is, in fairness, rare in my extensive experience — the punctuality is second-to-none, as those who fly regularly on the London-Dublin route can attest. Besides, I’m usually asleep long before Agnieska and Irena start hawking their rubbishy scratch cards, overpriced junk food and insect repellent — I mean “fragrance ideas”.

When the price of oil isn’t skyrocketing, Ryanair is hugely successful. It has brought flying within the reach of people of even the most limited means and has helped to change the economic prospects of neglected parts of Europe by bringing passengers and their money to obscure provincial airports.

Who had ever heard of Torp or Treviso or Beauvais before O’Leary came along? And just occasionally Ryanair flies to the ‘right’ airport, like Belfast City or Rome Ciampino. They don’t lose your bags either — because they’re stuffed in the bin above your head.

I’m not going to pretend flying Ryanair is a spiritual experience — far from it — but you kind of get what you pay for, most of the time anyway, which you can’t always say about some other airlines. Which begs the question: why exactly has Aer Lingus’s response to Ryanair’s bid has been so vitriolic? You would think Michael O’Leary was a secret child molester, not the CEO of a (rather more profitable) rival.

At the end of December, Aer Lingus chairman Colm Barrington wrote to shareholders a rather colourful letter with the word ‘Reject’ scrawled all over it. Ryanair is “opportunistic”, has “misrepresented” Aer Lingus: the offer is a “rip-off”, he told them.

Strong words indeed. How dare the impudent upstart consider increasing its stake in the mighty Aer Lingus with its “compelling product and superior service”? You would think Hyundai was making a bid for Rolls-Royce, not one low-cost airline trying to take a larger stake in another “Irish low-cost, low-fares airline” as Aer Lingus describes itself when selling its virtues to potential customers, rather than investors.

Willie Walsh, former Aer Lingus CEO, characterised Ryanair as “cranky, basic, unapologetic and tolerable”, while Aer Lingus was “friendly, practical, fair and relevant”.

Sorry, but have I missed something? Since when was Aer Lingus — apart from in business class transatlantic — a premium product? The 1980s? Aer Lingus isn’t in alliance with BA, American Airlines and Cathay Pacific any more, remember: it’s in with jetBlue — you guessed it — the American Ryanair.

Over in The Irish Times recently ye olde Aer Lingus was painted in embarrassingly glowing terms: “Anyone who has ever been an emigrant, had an exhausting business trip or endured an isolating stay in an alien culture will have experienced the warm glow of arriving at the gate and seeing the green bird on the runway that signified home. Once, Aer Lingus was a national treasure, up there with Guinness, Waterford Crystal and Barry’s Tea, an emotive plank in the complex structure of Irish identity, one of the few indigenous mega-brands.”

“Once” is the operative word. Admittedly, the author’s piece went on to say standards had dipped a bit of late but surely the “warm glow” only started once the free drink started sloshing around the cabin, not at the gate? Nowadays, you’d be hard pushed to get a glass of water to take an aspirin with, let alone a generous slug of your favourite tipple.

Where or what were these “alien” cultures anyway? Las Palmas is about as foreign as it gets these days with the green bird: one single flight to mainland Africa (Morocco) and none east of Athens, not even Moscow, Istanbul or Dubai. Are Ryanair and Aer Lingus really chalk and cheese, you might ask? Isn’t the really big difference that Aer Lingus has a famously truculent unionised workforce and Ryanair does not? And how does this make for a “superior product” exactly? Colm Barrington claims that consolidation of the European airline industry is only really happening where failing firms are concerned.

It’s patently not true: look at BA and Iberia or Lufthansa and SAS, Swiss and Austrian, not to mention Air France’s acquisitions and mergers. At the same time, he claims to be looking for a new shareholder. None of these is a “perfect partner” for Aer Lingus, but as long as it isn’t Ryanair he is keeping his “strategic options” open.

AER Lingus’s strong rebuffs to the Ryanair takeover have, it must be said, been extremely successful thus far, but does anyone really believe in “Aer Lingus’s vibrant future as an independent airline”, to quote Mr Barrington’s letter? Does Aer Lingus itself?

Now, Ryanair’s offer might be considered low. The current €1.40 per share cash bid is more than the closing price in November, but it values Aer Lingus at only half what was on offer two years ago. But is it wise to rule out for all time the prospect of a single strong Irish airline that can compete with the BA, Lufthansa and Air France-KLM mega-groups?

If no one else is prepared to pay more — and there is no sign yet of the French beating a path to Aer Lingus’s door — why this violent hostility to Ryanair when it is offering guarantees on issues like Heathrow, Shannon and even union recognition? Business is business: nostalgia for the Aer Lingus of yore and snobbery towards Ryanair’s chief and its customers should play no part in decision-making.

True, Aer Lingus can currently point to money in the bank and new London connections, but if it doesn’t look as though it will turn in a decent profit this year, and if Ryanair ups its bid, the board might have to take a humbler approach.

At that stage, Michael O’Leary’s issue might be with the EU Commission. The omens are not good given his past dealings. One thing is for sure: he will need to be a bit more charming to them than Ryanair has been to me recently.