RYANAIR CHIEF executive Michael O’Leary has said that 300 aircraft maintenance jobs which his company had proposed for Dublin airport will now be lost to the State.
His remarks came following the failure of talks last night with Tánaiste Mary Coughlan over access to a hangar which the airline was seeking for the new project.
Mr O’Leary said Ms Coughlan had indicated she would not intervene and direct the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) to sell or lease the facility, known as Hangar 6 which Ryanair wants to secure as a base for a new maintenance plant.
He said Ryanair would now move to finalise negotiations with other airports in Europe about establishing the new maintenance base there.
Aer Lingus has a 20-year lease on the hangar and is not willing to leave the facility which it says it requires for its future operation.
Ryanair has contended that under the terms of the lease the DAA could require Aer Lingus to vacate the hangar.
Ms Coughlan said there were legal impediments preventing Aer Lingus from being forced out of the facility.
She said the Government had offered other options such as the provision of space within existing hangars at Dublin airport, which could be refurbished to the company’s required specifications, or the construction of another facility for Ryanair.
“It is unfortunate that he was intransigent in what he wanted to achieve. But my door is open as is the Government’s in the context of looking at other ways in which he could secure his maintenance operation in Dublin,” she said.
“It is important to say everything that can be done in the context of supporting those jobs will be done. But it is very difficult to deal with someone who has only one thing in mind and that is access to Hangar 6,” she said.
She added that she hoped Mr OLeary would still consider the alternative options put forward by the Government.
However, Mr O’Leary said that “tragically 300 jobs we could have created in Hangar 6 will now be lost because the Minister will not ask the DAA to vacate Hangar 6”.
He added: “The DAA has a clause to allow it to move Aer Lingus’s tiny line maintenance operation out of Hangar 6. The Government owns the DAA and the Government will not take any action. It makes you pine for the days when Albert Reynolds or Charlie Haughey were running the country.”
Ms Coughlan said that another difficulty was that Ryanair would not deal directly with the Dublin Airport Authority, which was the landlord.
