Mr. Evan Cullen:

Deputy Griffin referred to Stobart Air. We represent 95% of the pilots in Stobart Air. There is no question that we would be greatly concerned that the operations of Aer Lingus Regional, on behalf of which Stobart Air provides the service in question, would be hugely curtailed by what is proposed. IAG does not have a history of keeping relationships such as that involving Stobart Air alive. That would have a knock-on effect into the regions. A key aspect of what is happening at Dublin Airport is that Aer Lingus Regional is bringing passengers from the UK provincial airports into the terminal 2 hub. Terminal 2 is operating in direct competition with Heathrow's terminal 5 at present.

In the industry, we call Heathrow "Fortress Heathrow". It is a fortress for BA to make money. No one can get a foothold in Heathrow unless it is a company like Aer Lingus, which arrived in the 1950s when the runways were first laid, or Lufthansa, which has grandfather rights for many years. This is why terminal 2 is posing a challenge to terminal 5. If we could get Dublin Airport working properly as an airport and not as a shopping mall, it would be an even bigger challenge to terminal 5.

A question was asked about United. Aer Lingus operates in partnership with United. United is one of the big world alliances. Aer Lingus was in One World for a while but it left. What is unique about Aer Lingus's relationship with the world alliances is that it does equal business with all of the alliances. If Aer Lingus joins One World, as IAG proposes in writing, it would have to break its relationships with the others. It would then have to generate three times the income in the One World code-share to justify the breaking of the code-share with the others. It would be more difficult, therefore, for a person to travel seamlessly with United through the United States on an Aer Lingus ticket.