In the bad old days before Ryanair the cost of flights on short hops like Dublin-London was exorbitant. But Ryanair has been around for nearly 12 years, and it's difficult to remember just how high the fares were. So here is a reminder. Today you could fly to London and back five times for the price of a single return fare before Ryanair forced the prices down.
If that was its only achievement it would be laudable enough but it is not. Ryanair provided a lifeline to the regional airports. It was only when Aer Lingus realised it had been out-manoeuvred again by the fast-moving, low-cost airline that it started to take internal flights seriously.
Not seriously enough, though. Its flights tended to be clumped around midday, leaving fliers with no way to make connecting flights to any European destinations in time to do a day's work. As a Galway-based minister for transport I tried to convince Aer Lingus that an early-morning flight out of Galway would be used extensively. In the end it took a ministerial direction to "persuade" it to start operations at a reasonable time. The route and timing have proved enormously successful, so much so that I often can't get a seat on the early-morning flight.
In 1992 we had a major disagreement between Aer Lingus and Ryanair over the Dublin-London route. Again as minister I tried to establish some semblance of co-operation between the carriers. Oddly, this led to claims that I was endangering the national airline. Odd because both airlines involved were Irish.
Last year we seemed to have reached the happy-ever-after bit of this business fairytale. A small company had bravely taken on our jolly green giant. Even when things looked grim it kept on fighting. And finally it won. The flotation last year demonstrated that the company was doing very nicely indeed: £96.9 million in profits in six months last year alone; £64 million for the Ryans from the flotation; £14 million for the chief executive; new planes ordered; new routes planned. Everything had turned out great.
But that success was also the root of the current problem. Ryanair hadn't just defeated the old giant, it had become a giant itself. Until last year the management was always able to characterise the company as a team taking on an "evil" oppressor. Aer Lingus was the bad guy, and everyone in Ryanair had to work together just to compete.
Once Ryanair was floated the employees got to see that their own bosses were making staggering amounts of money and, naturally, they wanted some for them selves. They knew the company was no longer likely to fold. How could it with such large profits?
The unions spotted this, too. They had tried to sign up Ryanair staff before. Both the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) and the ATGWU had failed earlier in the 1990s. Each time Ryanair's senior management had intervened and talked directly with the individuals involved. And the team survived.
Then, in December, SIPTU had another go. It picked some of the lowest-paid employees of the airline and started recruiting them, successfully. The claims made by SIPTU that other workers doing similar jobs were being paid more than Ryanair's employees are disputed. It would be helpful if SIPTU's Paul O'Sullivan produced the official Aer Lingus pay figures which he claims prove this. Whatever the accuracy of his assertions the outcome could prove devastating.
Since December we have seen the dispute escalate from a disagreement involving only 30 of Ryanair's 954 staff into a controversy that has already dragged in the Government, has called Partnership 2000 into doubt and threatens to change industrial relations policy and legislation in Ireland permanently.
Ryanair's increasingly untenable stance is that it deals directly with its own staff and will not change its corporate mind on this. It still seem to be using the same redundant arguments when it talks to the baggage-handlers.
In a letter to them, the director of group operations claimed that "nobody in Ryanair, least of all you, will benefit in this dispute - we all lose. The only people who will gain out of this dispute are Aer Lingus, who will be carrying our passengers." But the baggagehandlers aren't scared of Aer Lingus any more. They are looking at their own bosses and wondering where the enormous profits are going to and, more importantly, where their slice is.
Even though this strike involved only 3 per cent of Ryanair's staff and has shown no signs of gaining support from within the company, a difficult choice will have to be made. It can give the baggage-handlers a further pay rise to buy back their loyalty and get rid of the SIPTU influence, or it can talk to the union and watch the rest of the ground staff sign up to take advantage of whatever deal ends up being negotiated.
With the amount of cash seemingly available to Ryanair the first option may seem more palatable but could ultimately prove ruinous. Even if SIPTU were to lose the battle over the baggage-handlers, it will always have the option of going after another section of Ryanair's staff.
Each attempt would have to be counteracted by large pay rises. This would significantly raise the airline's costs. As it is the low-cost base that the company's low fares are based on, Ryanair would have to seriously reconsider the kind of product it provides.
What happens next is important, not just to Ryanair. SIPTU has already scored significant victories in this conflict. The Labour Party has thrown its weight behind its demand for statutory change to force companies to deal with unions should arbitration fail.
The report from the high-level group examining the issue of trade-union recognition has proposed a voluntary code to deal with the problem. But a voluntary code would not solve the current problem. If Ryanair wished it could ignore it and carry on as before.
Leaving this option open to employers would appear to be unacceptable to the unions. One union leader called the group's report "wretched". The Tanaiste, Mary Harney, to whom the group presented this report, is in an awkward situation that is likely to get much worse very soon.
As long as the argument remains conceptual, that is as long as the unions, IBEC and the other interested parties keep talking about Partnership 2000 and the principle of union recognition, we will continue to pay it scant attention. But if Dublin Airport was to be shut down by strikers from other unions already operating there, and business people and holidaymakers had their plans ruined, we would start demanding action.