Mr. Willie Walsh:

I have answered that. In those five years I would expect to see the people in Shannon give a commitment to the service that is being provided. It is there to be used and we want to make it work. The more people that fly on it, the more successful it will be. It would be great to see that there was demand that exceeded the capacity in order that we would have to look at putting on additional services. It is not a one-way commitment. I am giving a one-way commitment saying we will be there for five years and continue to operate the services. That is a commitment that is not in place today.

I am aware of some talk about the development of a cargo hub. IAG does not operate any dedicated cargo aircraft. All of the cargo we fly is carried in the belly hold of the aircraft. We used to lease three dedicated 747 freighters to operate on our behalf. We have an arrangement with Qatar Airways, a big cargo operator, which provides us with the capacity to supplement the direct passenger capacity that we have. We do not have the equipment, and therefore are not in a position, to develop a cargo hub at Shannon. It would be great if there was one developed there. I am absolutely sure that our cargo team would want to connect into that somehow. However, we do not have the dedicated cargo aircraft necessary to develop such a hub at Shannon.

Can one develop a hub in five years? It is very difficult. While Heathrow is the main hub, we do have a presence at Gatwick where we have both long-haul and short-haul services. We feed traffic from one to the other. It is not structured in the same way as Heathrow is structured as a hub. One can have a situation where one has passengers transferring but it is not a structured hub necessarily. There is no reason one cannot fly passengers into Shannon to connect on to transatlantic services. To develop it as a hub, however, one would require a lot more services. I do not believe there are enough direct amounts to support all of those services. I am sure there is capacity to fly services, particularly from the UK and UK provincial airports, possibly through the arrangement with Aer Lingus Regional or Stobart Air. That is something we can look at but, credibly, I do not believe one could develop a second hub in Ireland given that it is only now that they are setting about trying to develop Dublin as the first hub. Up to 750,000 passengers transferred in Dublin, which is a small figure, representing less than 5% of the overall number of passengers who went through Dublin. One can make it easy for people to connect.

On connectivity to other hubs, I am not sure whether there is demand for such services. The smallest gauge of aircraft that Aer Lingus will have is the A320 with 174 seats. With that gauge of aircraft, one needs quite a lot of traffic to make it sustainable. It may be possible with smaller gauge aircraft but Aer Lingus does not have those types of aircraft. It has some A319s which are on lease but will leave the fleet in the next year.

I do not know whether there would be sufficient traffic to support the operation on a viable basis of flights from Shannon into other hubs.

My experience of Cork, Shannon and Dublin has been great. Given that I have been to Knock Airport only once, I cannot comment on it. Cork has always been a vibrant city with a very strong business focus and attitude and I am surprised at the decline in traffic in Cork Airport. It contradicts the reported growth in traffic from Cork to Heathrow. I know from the traffic we get from Cork to Heathrow and the transfers that they are going all over the world. Some of it is pharmaceutical related. We will carefully study Cork Airport to see if the loss in traffic can be recaptured. I do not know where it has gone to, whether Cork people are not travelling or it is something else. I remember when it took two hours to drive from Shannon to Cork. It does not take two hours today. With the improvement in the road network, there is more competition.