A chara, - Ryanair's Head of Communications, Paul Fitzsimmons (October 18th), in one of his company's regular tirades against Aer Rianta, full of over-inflated figures, omits to mention one of Aer Rianta's contributions to Irish aviation for which Ryanair has good reason to be grateful.
According to Siobhan Creaton's sympathetic history of Ryanair published earlier this year, Aer Rianta played a major part in saving the airline from bankruptcy in the late 1980s, wiping out more than £1 million worth of landing charges and other fees the airline could not afford to pay.
Deals with Ryanair at Cork and Shannon were renegotiated on terms more favourable to the company and Aer Rianta began "to provide duty-free products to Ryanair on very generous terms that effectively left the airport operator out of pocket". Creaton observes that Ryanair will never acknowledge these facts.
Perhaps the next time Mr Fitzsimmons sits down to attack one of Ireland's most successful State companies in the media he will acknowledge the contribution the company made to ensuring there was an airline for him to serve as head of communications. Aer Rianta put the needs of the State to have a low-cost carrier before its own bottom line. How sharper than a serpent's tooth, etc. - Is mise,
MARY LOU McDONALD, MEP, Parnell Square, Dublin 1.