Mr. Willie Walsh:

It is difficult to say. The general view is that domestic markets will recover first and we are seeing that. There is no domestic market in Ireland or the UKper sebut if we look at big domestic markets around the world, China is back above where it was in 2019, as is Russia. The US is pretty much in line with 2019 and having spoken with chief executives in the US industry, they are confident they will have more capacity in the market this summer than they did in 2019. One could argue that domestic markets have fully recovered.

The view has been that short-haul leisure flights would recover first, built principally on the belief that the EU would open and there would be a common regime across the EU. It has disappointed many people that we have not seen that. The area of business that will lag in recovery is long-haul international. Ireland is principally looking at the US in this regard and we should get moving and put much effort into this.

We are going to have to work hard from a tourism point of view to convince US tourists to come back to Ireland and to demonstrate to them that they are going to receive the traditional warm welcome. There is work to be done there. It is domestic markets first, so that is no help to Ireland. On short-haul leisure, if we can get the EU working together, there should be some benefit to Ireland but the real benefit is long-haul, and that is transatlantic.

To be honest, I do not see the Aer Lingus network recovering to where it was in 2019 until 2024 or 2025. I do not see the US airlines that served Ireland coming back quickly into the market either.