Business Opinion: It looks as though the Government finally is going to press the button today on the long-awaited Aer Lingus flotation. The last few loose ends are in the process of being tied up: the board of the airline has been reconstituted and Siptu, the largest union, is balloting its members on proposals to resolve the airline's pension deficit and other issues.
A recommendation from the union leadership means that the vote is something of a formality. And once it's been passed and a few other small issues put to bed, the process of selling the airline can begin in earnest.
This job will fall to US bank Goldman Sachs and AIB Capital Markets. It will not be an easy job, one suspects, but at least it will be well-paid. All going well the company will debut on the Irish and London stockmarkets some time in the autumn.
The real problem facing Goldmans and AIB is that, to begin with, they don't have a very exciting story to tell - it looks even worse when its held up for comparison with with the most obvious yardstick, Ryanair.
Aer Lingus may be able to boast a set of figures that are more than respectable by industry standards, but they still pale in comparison to Ryanair's performance.
In addition, while Ryanair talks of relentless European expansion - limited only by the idiocy of Europe's governments and airport operators - Aer Lingus's plans seem pedestrian and somewhat woolly.
The best line in the Aer Lingus story is the potential expansion of its profitable long-haul business, both transatlantic and further afield. However, this is all a bit vague and partly predicated on a radical overhaul of the current aviation agreements between the US, Ireland and the EU and their replacement with a so-called "open skies" policy.
The current thinking is that this process has been set back for at least a year by the fall-out from the recent plot to blow up US transatlantic flights out of Heathrow. And, as a number of analysts have pointed out, when and if it does come into force, the major US airlines cannot be expected to just lie down and allow Aer Lingus to take their passengers.
Another related challenge facing Goldman Sachs and AIB is the lack of visibility of the company's management. Again this is counterpointed by the omnipresence of the Ryanair chief executive, Michael O'Leary, and to a certain extent BA's Willie Walsh, who seems to be adopting an increasingly high profile in the media.
The Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion is, by contrast, seen as something of a technocrat plucked from the semi-obscurity of a senior management of Gulf Air. While he has shown himself to be sure-footed in his media appearances to date, he still comes across as rather grey.
A similar problem afflicts the board, which is now taking final shape. Its lack of experience in the airline business is also something of a problem and has not been addressed by the final appointments.
Tom Moran may be very highly regarded in the US, where he runs Mutual of America, but he is relatively unknown on this side of the Atlantic. His function presumably is to open a few doors for the company in US. Again Danuta Gray, the head of O2 Ireland is well-regarded, but what she knows about aviation is unclear.
One fears Goldmans and AIB will have their work cut out trying to generate some sort of buzz about Aer Lingus. Maybe its because it has been such a long time coming, but there is something of the anti-climax about the whole thing.
It has not been helped by the Government's procrastination and the clear lack of enthusiasm for the sale in some quarters. Equally the muscle-flexing indulged in by the company's unions over the years may have paid off for the staff, but it has delayed the process and is not going to encourage any would-be investor who bothers to do their homework. Ryanair's non-unionised status serves only to highlight this risk.
It will be interesting to see what Goldmans and AIB come up with to kindle investor interest. We can expect a strong focus on the company's very good financial performance over the last five years or so.
We will also hear a lot about how this was achieved against a very challenging backdrop while the airline was under- capitalised and had only limited commercial freedom.
Imagine, the advisers will presumably ask, what can be achieved now with adequate funding and more commercial freedom?
It is not a bad proposition. But the elephant in the kitchen is that the current senior management team cannot credibly claim the credit for the airline's recent performance. Rightly or wrongly that lies with Willie Walsh and the executives who left with him.
