Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 12 February 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications

Proposed Sale of Aer Lingus: (Resumed) IAG

2:00 pm

Mr. Willie Walsh:

Let me provide some scope. I apologise, Chairman. What we have clearly seen is that Aer Lingus is seeking to develop a hub at Dublin. We support what Aer Lingus is trying to do in developing a hub at Dublin. That creates very significant value over just having a direct flight because, as I said earlier, one not only gets the value of the traffic that is fed in from a transatlantic point of view, one also gets the value of the additional services that are required to feed in. That is specifically for Dublin.

I am not for one minute suggesting our focus is only on Dublin; it is not. Aer Lingus has always had a strong presence in Shannon and in my view will always have a strong presence in Shannon because there is always a strong demand for transatlantic services into Shannon. We are in the business of providing capacity where demand exists. So we will continue to provide all the capacity that is required and hopefully more as we seek to develop Aer Lingus and grow its presence. That is not restricted to Dublin; it is in Ireland where we see Ireland being a growth market.

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