Aer Lingus rejects FG TD's claim that DAA could make it vacate hangar

AER LINGUS has rejected claims by Fine Gael Dublin North TD Dr James Reilly that, at a meeting with the company, the airline said its lease could require it to vacate the controversial Hangar 6.

Dr Reilly, speaking after a meeting yesterday morning between Aer Lingus officials and a number of Dublin North TDs, said “it has been confirmed that it is legal under the lease for the DAA to move Aer Lingus” from the facility. Ryanair has been seeking to take over the airport hangar under a maintenance plan, which it says would create 300 jobs.

The Fine Gael TD acknowledged that the company also gave a number of reasons why it was impossible for it to move, but he believed that “they have to hear the right music in terms of compensation”. The airline said it rejected his “interpretation of discussions at a briefing for public representatives”.

It said in a statement “the Department of Transport asked Aer Lingus, by e-mail on Tuesday, February 16th, if the airline would be willing to surrender its 20-year licence of Hangar 6 and relocate its operations there to elsewhere in the airport”. This was followed by a phone call from Tánaiste Mary Coughlan to Aer Lingus chief executive Christoph Mueller.

Aer Lingus said it “has consistently maintained that it needs the capacity of Hangar 6 for aircraft maintenance work, particularly of its wide-body A330 aircraft which cannot be accommodated in other hangars at Dublin airport”.

“To illustrate this point, and to refute Ryanair claims in a photograph taken on February 16th, official aircraft movement records show that in that 24-hour period there were nine aircraft in Hangar 6, including two wide-body aircraft at the same time.”

Fianna Fáil Dublin North TD Michael Kennedy, who attended the same meeting also rejected Dr Reilly’s claims and said: “To suggest otherwise is a complete distortion of the truth. Not only is it extremely unhelpful but it gives false to workers.”

Mr Kennedy highlighted the only circumstances in which Aer Lingus could vacate Hangar 6 “is to allow DAA to develop or expand the airport”. But Dr Reilly asked “what would 300 jobs be only development of Dublin airport?” Of a requirement for 24 months’ notice, he said that leases “can always be renegotiated”.

A spokesman for the Tánaiste reiterated Ms Coughlan’s comments to the Dáil that she had spoken to the company’s chief executive and he pointed to the letter by the company chairman Colm Barrington in yesterday’s Irish Times, in which he said “there are no circumstances under which this lease can be broken in order to provide the hangar to a third party”. Dr Reilly also said “Ryanair are wearing the trousers in this and we have to play ball” to create 300 jobs. He added that “if someone wants a house with a pink door and they’re going to give you 300 jobs, you paint the goddamn door pink”. The two airlines and the DAA have been invited to attend an Oireachtas transport committee meeting on the row.

Fine Gael and Labour are divided on how the dispute should be resolved, and Labour transport spokesman Tommy Broughan said the Tánaiste and Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey should also be invited to attend next week’s meeting.

Mr Broughan, who had a separate Aer Lingus briefing and met Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary earlier in the week, said “there does seem to be a very significant offer on the table from Ryanair”. He wondered why Mr O’Leary was “so fixated with Hangar 6 unless it’s something to do with its location both roadside and airside, and it has wonderful offices”.