Mr. Stephen Kavanagh:

Aer Lingus's relationship with United Airlines is a code-sharing one focused on revenue and maintaining as many customers on our respective networks as possible. However, there are no cost synergies because that would represent a transfer of value and the relationships between the two parties are not deep enough to merit the transfer. Etihad has an equity stake in Aer Lingus on the basis of which Aer Lingus has had access to some procurement benefits. We work closely with our equity partner in Etihad to extract revenue benefits, for example, by having an Aer Lingus code on services to Australia and in procurement. However, the benefits are limited because, given that Etihad owns 4% of Aer Lingus, it would not transfer the full economic benefit. The combination of Aer Lingus as part of purchasing and procurement within Etihad gives Etihad more scale. Although Aer Lingus extracts value from that scale, it is nowhere close to the value that would be delivered by IAG's proposition.