20 uutta reittä Dublinista

Siis linkkisi ei suoranaisesti todista mitään väitteestäsi. Paperilla kyllä kuulostaa loistavalta, jos Tampereelta pääsisi Dubliniin suoraan tai toistepäin. Suorastaan herkulliselta. Irkku-reissu kun sattu olemaan ensi kesän suunnitelmissa :D

Fare wars: O'Leary ready to tackle Aer Lingus with 20 new European routes



RYANAIR is set to hit Aer Lingus with an all-out fares war on routes between Dublin and the Continent.

Massive savings for travellers are in the air as a result of secret negotiations between the budget carrier and Dublin Airport Authority (DAA).

Ryanair intends to add 20 new routes out of Dublin to continental Europe.

It has offered to move to the basement of Dublin Airport to relieve chronic overcrowding and is willing to drop all its objections to the airport's contentious €1.2bn expansion plan.

It has even indicated it would be willing to access its planes through a temporary 'tented' pier.

But there is a downside for the new DAA chief executive Declan Collier in his attempt to find a radical solution to the capacity problem at the airport.

Michael O'Leary's budget airline will only go ahead if it can secure a significant reduction in passenger charges.

Although good news for consumers, the deal would be catastrophic for Aer Lingus, which operates on more than 40 routes between Dublin and the Continent.

For the past five years the national carrier has been protected from significant competition on most of these routes by a row over airport charges between Ryanair on one side and the government and Dublin Airport Authority on the other.

During that time Ryanair has refrained from any significant expansion from its Dublin base - effectively forcing customers who want to travel from Dublin to most continental destination to fly to London before making their onward flight.

Although Aer Lingus has reinvented itself as a low-cost carrier, it still has a much higher cost base than its rival.

Negotiations between the semi-state company aimed at lowering its cost base were to have concluded at the beginning of this year but are still ongoing.

One source close to those negotiations said they had "stalled", while another insider said that they were continuing but "much more slowly that was hoped".

Ryanair has told Dublin Airport that it will agree to the new arrangements if it gets a 50pc reduction in passenger charges. It is understood that while Dublin Airport is amenable to the reductions it is only willing to apply them to additional traffic brought in by Ryanair with all existing traffic being levied at the full rate.

The current rate is €5.09 but last week the aviation regulator Bill Prasifka said this would increase to an average of €6.14 over the next four years.

Ryanair has threatened a legal challenge to the increase, which also disappointed the DAA.

It was looking for a 50pc increase, partly to fund its expansion plans and partly to pay high levels of debt.

Ryanair signalled a thawing of relations with the airport authority earlier this year when it announced five new Continental routes from Dublin to Carcassonne, Biarritz, Rome, Frankfurt and Eindhoven.

Tom McEnaney