Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

National Aviation Policy: Ryanair

Mr. Michael O'Leary:

Turning to the question on why we have separate airline operator certificates, AOCs, this was partly because, originally, we had a tax regime here for flight crews which meant all of them would be taxed here in Ireland. We could not then get unionised across Europe because all the unions wanted all the contracts in their own countries. We had, therefore, to set up separate AOCs. Lauda Europe is slightly different, because it has Airbus aircraft. It is, therefore, almost like a completely different airline. With Malta Air and Buzz in Poland, this was a way of moving cabin crew contracts out of Ireland and Irish taxation as part of our agreements with national unions so they could all have local contracts and taxation in each of those countries. It would not have been possible to do that to an Irish AOC.

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