Mr. Stephen Kavanagh:

The business has been built on a deliberate strategy, particularly in the past five years. We have focused on connecting Ireland to the world, as we describe it, maintaining cost discipline and competing for customers who wish to travel to and from the island. We have deliberately targeted this opportunity because of our natural advantages. We have competed between Europe and North America, hence the deliberate partnership and co-operation with our colleagues in Stobart Air and some of the arrangements we have made with partner airlines in North America to give us access to the US and Canadian markets and European hinterland. This strategy has been successful and has allowed Aer Lingus to become the fastest growing transatlantic airline in the past three years. While this growth came off a low base relative to others, it has fuelled the company's overall growth.

We diagnosed that the next logical step would be to engage in a deeper level of co-operation with a stronger partner. We did not get the opportunity to negotiate or to engage on that basis because a stronger partner evaluated the same opportunity and made the proposal we are discussing. As I stated, IAG and Aer Lingus recognise the value and opportunity of the proposal from a business perspective. In terms of timing, the IAG proposal came at the same time as Aer Lingus started to develop a recommendation to the board that the natural progression for the company was to deepen co-operation with a stronger partner.