Sir, - As a former employee of Aer Lingus, I have looked in vain for some comment in your pages on what I and my former colleagues regard as a very significant event in Irish aviation: the operation of the last Aer Lingus "fifth freedom" service in late October. "Fifth freedom", in aviation parlance, means the operation of flights between countries other than the home land of the airline.
Aer Lingus was an airline of which we were all justly proud in the 1940s and 1950s; but we realised that in order to become a major player on the world aviation scene we had to break out of the limited Irish home market. Like KLM and others we had to break into really big markets.
For language and cultural reasons Britain was an obvious choice, and we picked Manchester as our "second home". In 1957 we (bravely, I think) started services between Manchester and Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Brussels, Frankfurt and Zurich.
Much later, with the development of the Common Market, some of us campaigned to get operating rights between major EU points, such as London and other EU capitals. Even as we achieved this, the airline was already "downsizing", and our visions were never to be realised. October saw the end of our dreams with the last Aer Lingus Manchester-Zurich flight.
We are still justly proud of our national airline and consider it one of the best. But would you blame me, sir, for regretting that the pioneering spirit of the 1950s has not been maintained, and for mourning the last of the "fifth freedom" routes?
It would be churlish of me not to note that Ryanair is moving into "fifth freedom" markets and to wish it well. Also, I note with pleasure the expansion of Aer Rianta and some independent Irish aviation consultancy companies in foreign markets. May you wave the Irish flag as proudly as we did! -Yours, etc.,
Malahide, Co Dublin.