MICHAEL O'LEARY,
Sir, - I refer to your Editorial of January 28th, "Ryanair flies high". We are always ready to be complimented or criticised as the case may be, but the inaccuracy of The Irish Times coverage of Ryanair never ceases to amaze me.
1. Can I confirm yet again, for possibly the 5,555th time, that Ryanair does not want "its own terminal" at Dublin Airport. What we want are competing terminals at Dublin Airport. Although we have offered to pay for this development, we have also said that we would upon completion give it back to the Government (as long as it is owned by anybody other than Aer Rianta) and that anybody else that wants to use it should be allowed to do so.
We remain convinced that competition for the provision of terminal space at Dublin Airport will result in lower costs and better service, as it has in all other elements of Irish life where competition has replaced Government or semi-State monopolies.
2. Ryanair has not allocated any new capacity to Ireland since 1997, which is about the date on which Mrs O'Rourke began following her Stalinist tourism development policies (namely of protecting monopolies at the expense of the consumer). During that period our profitability has risen from €32.2 million to about €130 million per year. In other words, our profits have quadrupled in the four years during which we have allocated all of our growth away from Ireland. Ryanair "needs" Ireland neither for traffic nor for profit growth. However Ireland needs Ryanair if it is to continue to stimulate low-cost access for business and tourism.
We continue to lobby strongly for this not because it will enhance our profits (allocating the aircraft to other lower cost European airports will make us just as much if not more profit), but simply because we care passionately about developing low-cost access, competition, and tourism, in this country.
Perhaps in time The Irish Times might also begin to care about the future of Irish tourism and begin to question why the Government should continue to protect a State-owned airport monopoly at the expense of the consumer interest? After all, we have promised to deliver 2 million additional passengers a year. What has Aer Rianta promised? - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL O'LEARY,
Chief Executive,
Ryanair,
Dublin Airport.