RYANAIR DEPUTY chief executive Howard Millar yesterday accused Aer Lingus of a “cover-up” in not releasing a report from external consultants into a controversial “leave and return” redundancy scheme that resulted in it having to make a €30 million settlement with the Revenue earlier this year.
The board of Aer Lingus decided recently not to publish the report, based on legal advice.
It said the recommendations – from Deloitte and McCann Fitz-Gerald – had been accepted and implemented by the company.
Ryanair has twice called for the report to be given to shareholders.
At an investor day for Aer Lingus in London yesterday, Mr Millar said: “I now believe the report is being deliberately suppressed . . . we now have an Aer Lingusgate.
“The reason is to protect the board of management. Unless the report is issued we won’t have any assurance as investors, or confidence, that such incompetence, in fact a cock-up, won’t occur again at shareholders’ expense.
“These are genuine and bona fide concerns as to how €30 million ended up being paid to the Revenue.”
Aer Lingus chief executive Christoph Mueller reiterated the board’s decision not to make the report available to shareholders.
“We got legal advice,” he told Mr Millar.
Mr Millar asked why Aer Lingus and not the employees had picked up the €30 million tab.
Andrew Macfarlane, Aer Lingus’s finance director, said the staff who availed of the scheme had been told there would be no “tax treatment” involved, and so it fell on the airline to pay the bill.
Mr Millar said shareholder value had been “shredded” at Aer Lingus since its 2006 initial public offering, and sought assurances it would not make a payment to the pension scheme operated jointly with the Dublin Airport Authority and SR Technics to plug a near €500 million deficit in the scheme. Mr Mueller replied: “We have no intention of making any contribution to the IAS [pension] scheme.”
In a trading update, Aer Lingus said its yield per passenger for the key summer months of July and August rose by 4.6 per cent compared to the previous year.
Passenger yields in the year to date are 7.1 per cent ahead of a year ago, the airline added.
Ancillary revenues per passenger were 5.1 per cent ahead in the year to date. Aer Lingus said its yields and volumes in September are also ahead of last year.