AER LINGUS chief executive Dermot Mannion just can't seem to catch a break.

He barely had time to bask in the glow of his decision to restore the Shannon-Heathrow link when Dell axed 1,900 manufacturing staff at its Limerick plant, with knock-on consequences for thousands of other jobs in the area.

We presume that the American computer giant's executives were a key target for the Heathrow route, not to mention its transatlantic services out of Shannon.

This has got to be a blow to Aer Lingus and CityJet, too, which established a link to Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport in the wake of the axing of Shannon-Heathrow in 2007.

Dell's announcement came on the same day that Aer Lingus announced its December and full-year 2008 traffic figures. They can only be described as disappointing. Its load factor on flights to the United States was down 6.7 percentage points and by 1.3 points on short-haul routes.

Now his parachute payment - agreed with the airline's former chairman John Sharman last October - has got Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey's back up.Mannion, it has emerged, is entitled to up to two years' annual remuneration if Aer Lingus is taken over and he leaves. Aer Lingus needs to keep the Government onside if it is to successfully fend off Ryanair's latest advance and convince the market that it does have a viable independent future.

Mannion has already lost the services of his senior independent director Sean Fitzpatrick, who quit as a director of the airline in the wake of the scandal over his failure to disclose personal loans with Anglo Irish Bank.

There is one crumb of comfort for the Aer Lingus boss. If Michael O'Leary does pull off the seemingly impossible and land Aer Lingus, Mannion will have compensation of up to €2.8 million to help him over the disappointment.