Ryanair renews bid to acquire Aer Lingus

Ryanair has made a renewed offer to purchase Aer Lingus, in which it valued the airline at 748 million euros.

Its previous bid valued Aer Lingus at 1.5 billion euros, but was blocked on anti-monopoly grounds by the European Commission.

Ryanair currently holds 30 per cent of the shares in Aer Lingus, and wants to merge the two carriers into a commonly-owned single airline based in Ireland.

The bid document stated: “Similar to previous European airline mergers such as Air France/KLM and Lufthansa/Swiss, both airlines will operate as separate companies, with distinctive brands, thereby preserving the best features of both, including Ryanair’s low fare, high punctuality operations, and Aer Lingus’ special brand, service culture as well as its long haul operations.”

The acquisition would see Aer Lingus’s short-haul fleet double to 66 aircraft, and also create around 1,000 associated new jobs over a five year period.

In addition, Ryanair would own the take off and landing slots held by Aer Lingus Cork and Dublin at Heathrow airport, and also Heathrow connectivity, meaning lower air fares for Ireland.

The low-cost airline also said that it would develop and upgrade the Aer Lingus long-haul business.

Michael O’Leary, the Ryanair CEO, said: “This proposed merger of Ryanair and Aer Lingus will form one Irish airline group with the financial strength to compete with Europe’s three major airline groups – Air France, British Airways and Lufthansa.”

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