Madam, - Ronan Tynan (Letters December 9th) questions if Michael O'Leary could be trusted with almost 80 per cent of the Irish airline market in the event of a takeover of Aer Lingus. As Mr. O'Leary pointed out on The Late Late Showlast Friday, Ryanair has almost 80 per cent of the traffic from Knock Airport, my local and preferred point of departure.
In the past few weeks I have availed of the quite incredible fares available from Ryanair through Knock to visit friends in the UK - for example €25 return to East Midlands (four flights per week) including taxes.
Could someone please tell me what everyone is so frightened of? Mr O'Leary clearly runs a tight ship, the ethos of the business is low cost air travel - do we all flatter ourselves so much that we think Mr O'Leary is going to change the whole direction of Ryanair as a company so he can hold the travelling public of this small outpost of Europe to ransom? I remember when growing up in the UK in the 1970s, Aer Lingus had a virtual monopoly on flying to Ireland - that very same company made flying to Ireland something you did in an emergency, such as a funeral, or if you had serious money; the rest of us traipsed up to Holyhead.
I know who I would trust with a greater share of the market, more business efficiencies and clearly a more profitable company to keep his promise.
A reality check is needed here, Ryanair taking over Aer Lingus will be nothing other than good news for the entire economy and perhaps it will wake up some of the dead wood running this country. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN QUINN,
Enniscrone,
Co Sligo.