Ms Lynne Embleton:

There are two components to it. There is what we call the point-to-point demand, which is local demand from city to city, and away from a hub, it is the size of that point-to-point demand that determines whether a route is going to be viable. It needs to be viable on a year-round basis generally if we are going to invest in an aeroplane. What is different in hub economics is there is the point-to-point market, which might be smaller than the whole aircraft. As I said, we have just announced Cleveland as a new route. Dublin to Cleveland traffic itself would not justify a whole aircraft, but we are the only carrier flying between Cleveland and Europe, and therefore what the hub gives is that breadth of destinations to take a few passengers from all the different cities, and if they are gathered up and all channelled onto the long-haul aircraft, a service can be sustained. Hub dynamics are very different and it can be seen across global aviation. Hubs play a very powerful role in the development of aviation, but that said, there is still a role for point-to-point direct traffic when the local market justifies it. We look at both but certainly it is easier to justify expansion from a hub because of this effect of connecting traffic on top of the point-to-point traffic.