CurrentAccount: Another day, another small charter airline teeters on the brink of collapse. Eirjet's desperate search for new financing underlines yet again the perils of a business in which the possibility of making vast fortunes is matched by the ever-present danger that the numbers simply won't add up.
For all its romance, the airline business is as tricky as they come. This is all the more so for smaller operators, whose very lack of scale increases their vulnerability to the cashflow difficulties that led Eirjet to suspend operations this week.
The tiny airline is just the latest in a line of smaller carriers to encounter extreme financial difficulty. Its backers were involved in the failed Skynet Airlines, to which an examiner was appointed last year. Neither were there any survivors when JetMagic, JetGreen, EUjet and TransAer ran into trouble.
If Ryanair's battle for Aer Lingus proves that there is long-term potential for the smallest of beginners to take on the giants, success requires more than a little luck and deep, deep pockets. None of this should be lost on the sector's newest arrival, Excel Airways, which launches next Wednesday, a week after Eirjet stopped flights.
Flying from a black hole to a real Calcutta
For years Michael O'Leary has poured scorn on Dublin Airport. His favourite phrase to describe the airport has been the "black hole of Calcutta". Some passengers have picked up on this theme and have been known to just use "Calcutta" as shorthand for the airport, as in: "I am catching a flight from Calcutta first thing in the morning."
While all this is terribly unfair on the airport authorities, O'Leary's metaphor has simply stuck. However the phrase, which presumably links the conditions in the slums of Calcutta with poor infrastructure in Dublin, may soon become redundant.
Lufthansa, the German carrier and one of the largest airlines in the world, is ignoring the overused cliches about Calcutta and has announced a new long-haul service to the city, which is now known as Kolkata. The service is being offered to passengers from Dublin, albeit via London. One wonders will passengers now simply say "I'm catching a flight tomorrow from Calcutta to Calcutta"?
Sensitive insiders
In the latest issue of the University College Dublin Law Review, a PhD student, Niamh Mulholland, reviews the law on insider trading in the light of the ruling in the mammoth Fyffes/DCC insider dealing case.
As most readers will recall, the court ruled that Jim Flavin and DCC were not in possession of price-sensitive information at the time of their sale of Fyffes shares, as alleged by Fyffes in the civil action taken by it.
Ms Mulholland, in her conclusion, says the judge's decision that the information was not price-sensitive, is "difficult to fathom". She goes on to say that after the ruling "it is hard to see what type of information could ever fall into the definition of price sensitive!".
No beating around the bush there. The review, launched yesterday by the Attorney General, Rory Brady, is sponsored by Arthur Cox solicitors, who acted for the losing side, Fyffes, in the huge High Court clash.
No connection with Ms Mulholland's view is being suggested.
Chronic bellyaching
There is very little new under the sun and it appears that this includes overcharging by retailers and the Irish public's penchant for bellyaching about it.
Current Account is indebted to one of our readers for sending in a clipping from the the Times of Wednesday, April 21st, 1926.
It contains a report on the first sitting of something called the Free State Tribunal on Food Prices. The tribunal, under the presidency of Senator S L Brown, sought views from the public on "whether retail prices are such as to afford the vendors unduly high profits".
The tribunal, said Senator Brown, would suggest - "if possible" - practical measures for the reduction of these prices, according to the report.
Current Account is unaware of what the outcome of the senators endeavours was, but suspects it was not the Groceries Order.
