O'Leary forsees big airline mergers

Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary says he believes in the next five years all European airlines will have merged with the big five airlines.

He said there would be no independent airlines such as Aer Lingus.

Mr O'Leary was appearing before the Joint Committee on Transport, which is considering air access to regions outside Dublin and fuel increase charges.

'It would be better for Aer Lingus to be owned by a man from Mullingar who guarantees no fuel surcharges, than some anonymous person in Frankfurt or Paris', he said.

The Ryanair boss claimed his company is the only airline that picks up the tab for increases in the price of fuel.

He said Ryanair guarantees no fuel surcharges.

Earlier, Managing Director of Aer Arann Garry Cullen told the Transport Committee that the airline's development plans have been set back 12 months due to the current economic climate.

Mr Cullen also said he believes Ryanair will seek to dominate all regional airports and operate an effective monopoly.

He believes Aer Arann could be 'squeezed' out of business by Ryanair, especially on the Cork-Dublin route.

And he said Aer Arann was caught in the battle between Cork Airport and Ryanair.

While praising Mr O'Leary for continuing to develop services out of Shannon airport, committee chairperson Frank Fahy asked Mr O'Leary why Ryanair wanted to put Aer Arann off the Cork-Dublin route.

Mr O'Leary said Ireland needed to broaden its vision with regard to competition.

He said Ryanair has no interest in Aer Arann as the competition for Ryanair was BA, Lufthansa and Air France.

Mr O'Leary told the Committee that there was no future for airports at Donegal, Galway, Sligo, Waterford and that Knock was 'pretty flakey'.

He said this was to do with fundamental economics, that Ireland is a country of 4m people with 11 airports, when it only needs one.

And he said at a time when we need hospitals, the State is subsidising rich people to fly from Knock and Shannon to Dublin.