It is dangerous to write off Michael O'Leary but the Ryanair chief executive's ambitions in respect of Aer Lingus appear to have been thwarted for the time being.
By Ryanair's own admission, its audacious takeover bid for the former State airline had little chance of succeeding without the support of the Employee Share Ownership Trust which controls 12 per cent of the company. The members of the trust - more than two thirds of them Aer Lingus employees - have passed judgment. Some 97 per cent of them rejected the offer, according to the results of a ballot released yesterday.
This, coupled with Ryanair's statement earlier in the week that it would not increase the offer, means that the bid is now dead in the water and will almost certainly lapse when the deadline for acceptances passes early next month.
A complicated set of rules governs what happens after that, but it will be very difficult for Ryanair to have another tilt at Aer Lingus for at least a year. But it can - and says that it will - retain the shares it has acquired to date, which make it the second biggest shareholder in Aer Lingus after the Government. It will also be able to increase its stake from 20 per cent to just under 30 per cent through the purchase of shares in the market. However it will not be in a position to have any influence on day-to-day operations.
That said, Aer Lingus's board and management can expect a torrid time over the next 12 months as Ryanair has made it clear that it will be a vocal shareholder and will settle for nothing less than a relentless drive to cut costs. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Aer Lingus lost momentum in this regard following the departure of its previous chief executive Willie Walsh. The need to keep all the disparate interests at the airline on-board in the run up to the flotation meant that contentious issues were put on the back burner to some extent.
The expectation was that management would turn their attention to costs once the flotation was safely out of the way, but again a softly-softly approach was on the cards. Ryanair's intervention has ensured that efficiency is sharply in focus once again and the need for urgent action is to the forefront. For this, at least, the management of Aer Lingus - and the ordinary shareholders - have reason to be grateful to Ryanair. Their hand has been immeasurably strengthened by the spectre of their rival hovering over them.
But any failure to deliver on their part will be seized upon by Ryanair as justification for its bid and could only encourage it to take a further shot at Aer Lingus next year. It may indeed be prudent to see the events of this autumn as the prelude to another battle or series of battles that could see Ryanair eventually wrest control of the airline in the coming years. The best insurance against this is for Aer Lingus management to deliver the benefits for air travellers that they claim will flow from continued competition.