08.14.07

Shannon goes on

Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 11:58 am by Sarah

Fintan and I are on the same wavelength..maybe one day a broadcaster will actually put this point to the FnFers, IBECers and sundry other tens of thousands who supported privatisation…

“There is, amazingly enough, a connection between what you vote for and what you get. The people of the broad midwest region voted in their droves for the parties that implemented and supported the privatisation of Aer Lingus. Fianna Fáil took 44 per cent of the vote and half the seats in Clare.

Together, Fianna Fáil and the PDs took 56 per cent in Limerick East; 52 per cent in Limerick West and 48 per cent in Tipperary South. If you include Fine Gael, which declared itself “generally supportive of the partial sale of Aer Lingus in order to give it commercial flexibility”, the endorsement of privatisation in the region was almost total: 80 per cent in Clare, 82 per cent in Limerick East, 92 per cent in Limerick West, 85 per cent in Galway East, 50 per cent in Tipperary North, 67 per cent in Tipperary South, 72 per cent in Longford-Westmeath.

Their horror at discovering that they got what they voted for suggests that most people in the midwest suffered from at least one of two extraordinary delusions. Either there was some part of the word “private” they failed to understand, or, even more bafflingly, they actually believed that the vague assurances of Government Ministers mean something.

They believed that when Martin Cullen told the Dáil in May 2005 that “in the context of any decision to reduce State ownership in Aer Lingus, all the options available within the regulatory framework will be examined to ensure adequate ongoing access to Heathrow for Irish consumers”, that this verbiage constituted some kind of promise. Or that his statement in March 2006 that “some additional measures may be desirable to ensure that the slots at Heathrow remain available for the provision of a reasonable level of services to and from Ireland” amounted to a real plan to protect an acknowledged national strategic interest.

The decision that Aer Lingus has made in relation to flights from Shannon to Heathrow is an utterly predictable consequence of privatisation. As long ago as October 2000, I wrote here that if Aer Lingus were privatised, “The notion of an Irish-based airline with a broad commitment to providing a specific public service linking Dublin, Cork, Shannon and Belfast to the world would disappear.” In March 2006, I wrote that “When Aer Lingus is a private company … howling about the national interest will be drowned out in the roar of engines on the tarmac, as a fine history ascends into the cold skies of private profit.”

These were not brilliant insights, but mere statements of the bloody obvious. Private companies have a legal obligation to deliver the maximum profit to their investors. Even profitability itself is not enough to secure a service if the same assets can deliver a larger profit by being used in another way. As CEO of a privatised Aer Lingus, Dermot Mannion doesn’t just have a right to move the Shannon operation to Belfast if he believes he can make more money, he has the duty to do so. Strategic national interests are, quite literally, none of his business.”

Meanwhile back on Morning Ireland the asynchronous interviewing goes on, this time with Dermot Mannion and the Unions over the differrent pay and conditions being offered to the Belfast pilots. They were interviewed one after another which allowed each to make extreme assertions without having to answer directly to their opponent. Now either the editors decided not to have them on together in case it turned into a row or one or other refused to directly debate in which case the presenter should point this out. I’m getting tired of it.

And if I hear the “75% flights terminate at Heathrow” stat again without it being challenged I’ll go mad. I used to fly Dublin-Heathrow and Heathrow-SFO with either Virgin or BA all the time. I’d book both flights separately online. How would Aer Lingus or the Dept of Transport know where I terminated my flight? They just assume because there’s no codeshare that there’s no onward flight. And as PO’Neill’s been pointing out, they can have no stats for the inbound flights. They don’t know where those passengers came from. WHEN are the broadcasters going to catch up?

And why the hell would I want to fly to Frankfurt or Paris in order to go the US or the Carribean? Fly 2 hours one way to fly the 2 hours back again? God, the one hour to Heathrow was bad enough…And I don’t care what people say about Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle is hell.

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