Hangar 6

@Edgar Morgenroth
Thanks for raising this. This is my view:

The Dublin Airport Authority are Aer Lingus before Ryanair arrived. No wonder they are so paranoid he might turn the hangar into a low-cost terminal. He has said he is happy to put legal undertakings in the lease ruling this out. But suppose the DAA’s worst nightmare happens – competition. The DAA have just built a brand new terminal at presumably lowest cost and maximum efficiency. Surely they should be well able to compete? If they aren’t, we MUST give Ryanair a terminal. The minimum wage and social welfare have been cut. Don’t we want to lower all costs? That’s not the way it works in Ireland though. The DAA is an insider patronage pork barrel. Only outsider peasants get their living standards reduced. The aristocracy’s DAA estate must be protected at all costs.

P.S. I prefer to avoid Ryanair unless absolutely necessary but thanks to them it’s a lot cheaper to fly Aer Lingus.

P.P.S. Various calamities.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/key-areas-where-coughlan-failed-to-save-jobs-2068509.html

There is something about getting ‘value for money’ from our public service, which is central to this entire Ryanair Hangar no. 6 debacle. If you look at it, companies such as Ryanair, formed their business plan and company philosophy totally around the concept – do not be like one of the Irish state owned companies, which Lemass set up, all those years ago. Because Ireland was in danger of missing out completely on the global boom, post WWII. (great documentary on RTE web site, about Lemass btw)

Take Bord na Mona as an example. Eddie O’Connor, the guys at NTR etc, all reckon, it was from the difficulty of having to do business with Ireland’s civil service, they decided to grab together some family seed funding, and go and do Airtricity. Airtricity’s strengths and ability arose from a difficulty of doing any business on the island of Ireland. Like Ryanair, it seems that these companies and individuals involved, do extremely well outside of Ireland, arising from this initial frustration. Even, there was an article about ‘aircraft leasing’ this week in the Irish Times, by Fiona Reddin journalist.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0215/1224264467495.html

I mean, it was the same with Zoe developments I know – totally caught out the establishment and the system in general, in one quick charge – because the existing system didn’t know what was up or down. What the latest comments about Hangar no. 6 do suggest, is that responsibility for decisions have again, dispersed throughout so many different state departments, agencies etc, etc. That is not something that any minister for Trade, Entreprise and Employment can sort out. The problem is embedded into our system, and goes beyond any individual elected representative, good, bad or indifferent.

Same with ministry for energy, and that for environment. Two green ministers who speak together (one would expect) very well. But their departments are completely different cultures, who use separate consultants and experts etc for all their business, and do not mix. Again, there is nothing that either minister Ryan or minister Gormley can do about that. It seems that ‘value for money’ is hard to obtain from the state bureaucracy on almost any project. It seems to be a huge risk to try and ask them to do anything.

Ryanair, Airtricity, Zoe developments, you name it – they all figured this out, and exploited it, for everything it is worth. BOH.

You have slightly misread Barrington’s letter.

He does not claim that this is the only hangar that can be used for wide-bodied planes. What he claims is that it is the only hangar that can be used for two wide bodied planes at once. AL has seven wide bodied planes and only does light maintenance in the hangar. I’d be surprised if two of them end up in the hangar together very often.

AL is using this hangar, but it doesn’t actually need it. It could use the other hangars if it needed to.

Obviously, AL does own the hangar. From the information I have seen so far, it is a little hard to understand how AL ended up with a lease on this hangar without Ryanair having a chance to bid for it. Maybe I am wrong in thinking this.

The crux for me is that AL couldn’t afford to take the lease on this hangar, the same way I can’t afford to buy a Bentley. They just don’t seem to have the cash to be spending on such a massive piece of infrastructure that they don’t actually need.

Maybe Aer Lingus is planning to open a terminal?

“Ryanair, Airtricity, Zoe developments, you name it – they all figured this out, and exploited it, for everything it is worth.”

Maybe to qualify that some more:

What it means also, is that Irish companies are grown in order to exploit massive gaping holes, left by the ineffective-ness of the state. Rather than concentrating on build-ing robust, sustainable business models to fuel company growth and development over the long term. There is too much cash to be made, in exploiting the inefficiency of the ‘system’ in Ireland. This leads to gigantic companies in Ireland, such as Zoe, which then fail in a spectacular fashion – passing the bill back onto the Irish people. BOH.

@David O’Donnell
I don’t want Aer Lingus taken over by Ryanair. It would be naive to believe that Irish consumers would benefit. Even if O’Leary was a beneficial dictator there is no guarantee his successors would be. Also, I don’t fly Ryanair unless it’s unavoidable. What would I do?

Likewise I don’t believe we can afford the DAA’s monopoly any longer. We need masses of tourists now and giving O’Leary a terminal – the old terminal perhaps, or part of the new terminal, or a dolled up hangar – is the easiest, quickest way. We have a hotel mountain and a house mountain. FF/PDs solution is to cut the minimum wage for hotel staff and let the megadevelopers keep their hotel taxbreaks while closing the hotels they built them with. Enough of the madness. Give O’Leary a terminal and assist him in every way to fill it. And if it works try to sell him Shannon Airport – at the moment it’s just a US military refuelling station.

As for the new head of the RIAI, I hadn’t anything too clever prepared, but most of it was said in the ‘Gaps that should not exist’ blog entry, before this one:

http://designcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/become-that-place.html

BOH.

@Mark Dowling
“…it’s likely the rationale for signing the Hanger 6 lease in the first place is that some maintenance outsourced by his predecessors to France will come back to Dublin as contracts expire.”
I hope so and that explains Aer Lingus’s rationale. What was the DAA’s rationale in negotiating the lease of this giant facility secretly? Aer Lingus is a private company. The DAA is a public body. Surely they should have maximised the return on this mega asset by putting it out to tender?

“If O’Leary wants a shed with a runway, sell him Baldonnel and move the Air Corps to Shannon.”
Not a bad idea. But we now have two terminals underused. We have a useless monopoly in control of both. Why don’t the DAA sell O’Leary the old terminal and give the cash to their owners, the Irish citizen. The DAA keep their superefficient new terminal. We get the money and competition – it’s Win Win.

I may be losing it, but do I not remember a statement by MOL that he was henceforth devoting his efforts to bringing down this Government?

If I’m right it might put the economic aspects of the case in a slightly different perspective. It is very worrying that nobody has referred to this statement in the current debate.

If I’m wrong I should retire gracefully, again 🙂

@me
That should have read, “200,000 extra unemployed since Brian Cowen took over”. We were far away from full employment even then.

@ALL
And a resident of the famous Sorrento Terrace in Dalkey:

“However, after the flotation of GPA was aborted in the early ’90s, the Bank of Ireland, which had lent him $1.5m against the value of his shares, froze $500,000 in Colm Barrington’s bank account. He took the bank to court…The High Court ruled in Colm Barrington’s favour and, fortunately for his neighbour-to-be, granted him full legal costs.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/millionaire-row-437938.html

@BOH
There is a lot in what you say. Ryanair’s treatment of their customers, especially in the old days, was reminiscent of the Irish strong farmer attitude to the hired hands. They are better now but if fuel prices went through the roof then all bets would be off.

Of course regular users of Dublin Bus get the Ryanair experience every day, for a much higher cost.

@Brian O’Hanlon
I used that route myself at one time. I hope that one day everyone in Dublin Bus connected to the No. 18 is sucked straight into hell. When I used to get the 17 from UCD at night I would check the time of the bus after the next one due. It was a much better predictor.

@BOH:
I apologise for asking an off-topic question, but your discussion of buses is pretty far off as it is. So here goes. Why do persons involved in building (and related activities) write “no” after numbers? Is it not clear that “2” is a number? What extra information is conveyed by adding “no”?

bjg

MOL is quite capable of taking on the establishment. More power to him. I do not know the ins and outs of this, but fullest use of assets is vital these days. Building more is pointless if there is under use of existing facilities. Government involvement in commercial facilities has been successful, in a less competitive market than exists nowadays. The DG Comp ruling, as represented, seems bizarre.

There is something rotten in Dublin airport, I recall the McEvaddy matter, too. Sell it off! Most of the employees are near retirement? Take time but competitiveness may be worth it. The post about the plethora of hotels and tourism facilities should be re-read!

The suggestion about Baldonnel has great merit! It might even be made into a private airport. I have already suggested disbanding the armed forces as the admin of three services that provide no actual service is utterly unnecessary as is the purchase of weapons etc. Unless we intend to go to war? We certainly cannot defend ourselves with what we have and now is a good time to economize. North Korea could be planning to take Kerry but so what?!

The Irish Independent is reporting today that O’Leary wants Hangar 6 to become Ryanair’s new Hq and would not accept a hangar without office space.

The Indo says he denied yesterday, however, that this was the sole reason for originally seeking the premises last year.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/oleary-wants-hangar-6-to-become-his-new-hq-2070491.html

The MSM are easily involved in order to sway public perception.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/02/does-judge-rakoff-smackdown-of-heinous-jp-morgan-heinous-conduct-mark-a-beginning-of-an-end-to-tolerance-of-sharp-practices.html

This link discusses the coverage of court decisions. Where some matters are suppressed by the MSM. The art of PR is also to keep material hidden. This sort of thing also happens in Ireland. The courts should be made available on line, so the public may see justice done. Or is it only to be available when whitewash is applied? The DIRT enquiry.

@Robert Browne
Just when you thought Cowen Coughlan couldn’t get any worse…

“RYANAIR has written to the Taoiseach demanding he correct “false claims” he made in the Dáil this week in relation to the dispute over job creation at Dublin Airport.

In one of two letters sent to the Government yesterday, the airline’s chief executive told Brian Cowen that the claims he made in the Dáil were damaging and defamatory towards his company.”

Not only that:

“In a second letter Mr O’Leary wrote to Tánaiste Mary Coughlan: “I understand from today’s newspapers that you wrote to Ryanair yesterday,” he wrote. “In your haste to circulate this letter to the media, perhaps your office ‘forgot’ to post or fax the letter to Ryanair since we still have not received it.”

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/oleary-demands-cowen-correct-false-dail-claims-112687.html#ixzz0g4ZrMdJD

@Robert Brown
It’s Hangargate:

“PRESSURE is mounting on the government to explain why a €13m Ryanair offer to take over an airport hangar and create 500 jobs was turned down.

New revelations raise questions about why the proposal was not pursued and Aer Lingus was instead granted a legally binding lease on hangar 6 at Dublin Airport…

The letter was sent to the chief executive of the IDA, Barry O’Leary, before SR Technics pulled out of Dublin Airport.

The proposal from Mr O’Leary offered the “largest job creation success story in Ireland in 2009″.”

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/ryanair-made-836413m-offer-for-hangar-months-before-rival-2071911.html

@Oliver Vandt
Hangargate is going nuclear.

Poster MPB on another forum:
“O Leary has demanded an apology from Cowen for telling lies about Ryanair in the Dail. He said that the lies undermine and harm Ryanair. He has the documented proof that Cowen lied.

If Cowen apologises he is admitting he lied to the Dail and must resign.

If he does not O Leary will hound him out with the proof that the Govt. turned down the offer of 500 jobs at Dublin Airport for reasons to do with the vanity of FF.”

Another poster:
“FF are going to claim it was the DAA and nothing to do with them. Will the Greens swallow that?”

MPB responds:
“O Leary was clever. He never dealt with the DAA. he dealt directly with the IDA and Mary Coughlans Dept. and he printed all the correspondence in last Sundays Indo.

He has them by the short and curlies and they know it, that is why they are ignoring it. They are hoping by doing this it will all go away.

I only hope that the opposition are on top of this.”

http://www.politics.ie/economy/124218-have-cowen-coughlan-been-telling-truth-about-ryanair-offer-500-jobs-10.html

@John Sheehan
It could be worse – he has been on a lot of airplanes. FF originally wanted to appoint Denis Bergkamp.

This is O’Leary’s milder statement on 18th Feb.
http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-s-proof-of-its-maintenance-only-plan-for-hangar-6

Check out the one from the day before:
http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/

@ All,

I will truthfully come forward as a self-confessed Green politics advocate any day of the week, to just about anyone I meet. But, on one condition. I do not believe it is sufficient to go rolling out a ‘green economy’ and aiming to create so many ‘green collar jobs’, unless, we can support all of that with solid economic underpin-ings. I spoke about it off and on, at IE blog site in recent times.

http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2010/02/12/mortgage-repayment-burdens/#comment-36195

I appreciate what minister Eamon Ryan is trying to do, saying 2 no. words all of the time – innovative solutions – about mortgage arrangements, or whatever else. They certainly are 2 no. words that impress me a lot. The way he says the words too, suggests that he believes in them. In fact, I will go so far as to say, I do not doubt the sincerity of Taoiseach Brian Cowen in his embrace of green-er ideas and solutions, and that of the ‘smart-er’ economy. But time is certainly against the coalition. Too little, too late. It is interesting to see both Fine Gael and Labour, taking the opportunity on this fine Saturday to exploit what are obvious cracks appearing in the partnership of Greens and FF. I did offer some of my own analysis of the problems in my blog entry yesterday, ‘Gaps that should not exist.’

There is one thing I would like to add about Green policy, while they were in government. I want to look briefly at the so-called ‘Waste Wars’ through the lense of the economic model I developed and expressed in my blog entry, Ryanair to Fail. In the instance of the waste industry, as in airline transport and travel – we see the same pattern. The government agency operates the wide body fleet, the private company, the narrow variety. In the waste industry, we see the job of the state is to provide the incinerator. The job of the state is to take on the big risk. The job of the state is to spend the large amounts attempting to establish the infrastructure. It then becomes the job of some else, in the private sector, to be the clean, innovative and friendly face of waste management and treatment. It is there you hear minister Eamon Ryan’s catch phrase, Innovative Solutions appear again.

That is the rub I am afraid. Green policy, if you really scratch the surface and look at the economics, the accounting, is no more than the same model – a modification of the oligarch model used in Russia. I have all the respect in the world for private companies who pioneer-ed in wind energy and green waste management techniques to help the environment. But all I am saying is this: Lets try to do some more than using the state, the taxpayer to support an economic opportunity, where the clean, innovative solution gets an easy ride. It might be green in one sense, but in an economic sense, it leads us to produce the Esat Digifones, the Ryanairs, the NTRs and Airtricitys. Who are all great companies, but could become so much better – if they were not simply filling a void – left by the ineffective operation of the state’s own bodies. If we are to achieve a convincing merger of green priniciples and good, sound economic, robust business, we need to work a little harder than, ‘innovative solution’ sound bytes. BOH.

@Brian O’Hanlon
Irish economists need to dialogue more with Irish green people. It would enrich both. Most other interests don’t care about anything except themselves whereas green people have an admirable passion for so many things. Unfortunately they regard economists as a problem, rather than people who provide tools to allow policy aims to be achieved at lowest cost. They don’t like it either that economists will argue with many of their goals but:
A. We live in an open society
B. Honest debate is good for policy
C. They can be surprisingly flexible if others engage them.

Irish economists should take note of a point you yourself made. Given Ireland’s crony capsocism, and the rampant corruption common across the parties and the administration, especially at local level, sometimes the most efficient solution still seems hugely unfair and wrong, given the context in which it is made. Ireland is a dynamic system that is miles from being an honestly administered world of perfect competition. The widespread nature of political corruption is the reason why so many in the GP see FF as no worse than any of the others. Unfortunately the GP’s propping up of this nightmare government will doom them but something will replace them. For the rest I will say no more.

I wish you all the best in all your endeavours and I will keep an eye on your blog. Myself and Tony are heading off for good.

@ All,

Policy formation is most definitely important. I was in the audience the other evening at a lecture given by BENE, Better Environment with Nuclear Energy. They were talking about the perception of the nuclear industry in Ireland. I couldn’t help to wipe the smirk off my face, throughout the lecture. I was thinking to myself, you fellows think you have it tough. But try looking for sympathy and support for the construction industry in Ireland now! My industry went through a period, in which we could do no wrong. There wasn’t enough man hours available to cater for Irish peoples’ insatiable appetite(s) for property. I hated that. I knew that would leave me without an occupation in life, sooner rather than later. And it did. I am disgusted now with just about everything. The construction in Ireland, should have run whatever course it had to run, within some sort of policy containment. Instead, we had a construction Chernobyl. A no trespass fall out zone for the next couple of generations. That is why I couldn’t stop smiling at BENE’s presentation. I tried to elaborate on it here:

http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2010/02/12/mortgage-repayment-burdens/#comment-35859

I also rambled the following (much to Karl Whelan’s annoyance I have no doubt).

“I suppose, the point I am making, is that from an economic point of view, if we were producing arms to win back the Ukraine from the Axis powers – then the model we used for house building in Ireland during the Celtic Tiger, would have been the ideal model to adopt.”

I have no idea why Ireland adopted that sort of ‘war time’ ramp-up production of property and development. I have no idea why we did that. When I wrote my blog entry, Ryanair to Fail yesterday, all I realised was, private entreprise in Ireland has been shelter-ed. Not in a good way either. I assume the construction industry had to maximise on it’s particular ‘shelter’, or something. It doesn’t lead to good, long term private entreprise. I.e. The stuff that will give a guy an occupation, instead of a pink slip. In my blog entry, The Shoe Box King, I tried to argue the need for better sequential planning. If the Green-tech guys in particular do not employ the low periods of growth in the Irish economy, to foster the best models and policy – then no one has any control, over anything, when the pressure to ramp-up begins. By that point, industry will grab whatever darn model it can, off the shelf (even if it was conceived for the 1950s). and deploy it. We have to learn to ‘ride the waves’ better in Ireland. We are so focussed on very large things, like Europe, NAMA and so on, we could easily miss this.

Sub-note: Architect James Pike spoke at the Feasta conference last summer ’09 about his research into ‘Equity Partnerships’. I just throw it out there, as an example. They appreciate better now, the need for some strong economic under-pinning to whatever the draw on paper. To enable a formation of a good urban society. The current head of the RIAI is getting smart-er about urban planning policy generation. But it is important to remember, these guys spent the last ten years, in a mobile phone link-up, to the construction equivalents to Michael O’Leary. They are start-ing with to learn the baby steps today. BOH.

Todays Sunday Independent newspaper writes:

“Also significant is the fact this letter was dropped in the Tanaiste’s in tray a full nine months before Aer Lingus inked a deal with the Dublin Airport Authority last November last to take over SRT’s former facility, signing a lease which Ms Coughlan insists cannot now be undone to facilitate Ryanair.”

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/tanaiste-saw-ryanair-deal-long-before-srt-closed-2072821.html

Last December I wrote at IE blog:

“It is unfortunate and inappropriate that DDDA adopted the same business model as DAA. Because DDDA doesn’t have a continuous and sustainable income stream like DAA enjoys. Indeed, Turner and Townsend main priority in DAA’s capital investment program, was to program construction work dates sos that DAA’s continuous project investment stream would be able to release funding at ‘major milestones’ so that construction could be bought at the lowest possible price.”

http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2009/12/29/politics-and-economic-policymaking/#comment-30276

You will find stuff about CHQ shopping centre in there also, which appeared in the Irish Times newspaper recently, because it has dropped below 50% occupancy. I guess, we could call it DDDA’s version of Hangar no. 6. In July 2009, I also wrote something for the Archiseek Irish Architectural forum, called A New Knowledge Campus for the Customs House Area. Which looks carefully at the DDDA’s lack of effective management of spatial resources at the centre of Ireland’s capital. (At the time both Royceton and Danninger all lost their jobs, and I was trying to make some sense of it all) DDDA as an organisation isn’t robust enough to fulfill its actual purpose. It seems as though DAA, has its faults too. Although I stand by both organisations, in terms of the skill levels they have managed to build up, in the last decade. BOH.

@ Edgar,

Just in case it is of any use to you, I based the following writing on lectures I attended by the DAA in 2009.

http://designcomment.blogspot.com/2009/06/dublin-airport-authoritys-capital.html

As I stated above, we at Zoe were involved in a joint venture agreement with DAA, for the lands at Harristown. My intention, back at that time was to foster an awareness of better program and project management skills at Zoe. So that we could genuinely tackle the issue of our €3.0 billion outstanding debt, and make good on some of our land assets. The trouble as I see it, Frederick P. Brooks, saw it worthy of incorporation into his essays. But there was no Mr. Brooks in Zoe, more is the pity too. We need to watch that, and bank lenders to the private entreprise need to watch that too.

Another reference Mr. Brooks appreciated on my recommendation was Ramo, Simon; Robin K. St.Clair (1998) (PDF). The Systems Approach: Fresh Solutions to Complex Problems Through Combining Science and Practical Common Sense. Anaheim, CA: KNI, Inc. You can download from the link here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_engineering

BOH.

Read in conjunction with above.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/daa-wont-reveal-price-paid-for-hangar-ryanair-valued-at-836413m-2073512.html

I am watching TD. Frank Fahy chair-ing the transport committee meeting at the Dail. It is weird to see a load of (male) Irish politicians, trying to pretend they know how to run a multi-national airline, better than Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary. Pathetic. That is what we have sunk to. Bad. BOH.

I scibbled together some notes from the Oireachtas committee meeting in a blog entry:

http://designcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-is-dealing-here-with-whom.html

BOH.

@ALL
Dail committee hearing on Hangargate discussed from post 336 on page 34 onwards of this thread on another forum. From the sound of things O’Leary incurred the wrath of the insiders from FF and Labour. I would expect that FG kept schtum too. The reason for this is simple. The DAA are the Bord Na Mona of North Dublin; CIE with a runway. This pork monster was always going to squish any threat – even a distant one under a future government – from giving Ryanair a big hangar. They’ve seen what happened to Aer Lingus and it’s not going to happen to them.
“Possible future competition – NO WAY. And stuff the jobs.”

http://www.politics.ie/economy/124218-have-cowen-coughlan-been-telling-truth-about-ryanair-offer-500-jobs-33.html

It’s also another victory for our army of Oireachtas committees.
Poster Fat Brian says it best:
“Adjourned until 3:45 March 10th
yes, thats right… MARCH 10th
a 2:45 meeting zaps broughan, fahy and kennedy so much that they need over 2 weeks to recover
That system is a FAIL”

Between them they have managed to discuss this hugely important, massively publicised issue for…..two hours fourty five minutes. Well done lads! You deserve those huge salaries and expenses. Keep writing letters for constituents because you don’t want to set up a national citizens advice and advocacy network. It’s all you aspire to anyway.

Ireland’s insiders would never give up power without a bitter fight. But they needn’t worry because no one is going to even verbally complain about them anyway. The Oireachtas Class are all so tight and corrupt that it would be literally unthinkable. For Ireland the late nineties will be as good as it gets. With our failed establishment it’s all downhill from now on.

To put it into perspective, the capital investment program by Dublin Airport Authority, to build Terminal no. 2 and roughly 200 no. other necessary works projects, has cost them about €2.0 billion euro.

(€2.0 billion euro of Irish taxpayers’ money)

In all of that investment, over an intense period of the last say, 5 years, in it, they couldn’t find a few million to buy a hangar worth €15 million.

Those are the facts, and deputy Frank Fahy can dispute them all his wants.

Ireland is losing 500 no. high skilled jobs, at Dublin, to the United Kingdom, because hangar no. 6, worth €15 million is owned by Royal bank of Scotland?

Taoiseach Brian Cowen should be utterly and absolutely ashamed. Make no mistake, this is a shocker – but all we are getting from the present Fianna Fail and Green coalition, is window dressing by deputy Fahy.

BOH.

@ALL
From poster Bokonon again:

Brian Cowen in the Dail: “There was a competition. Michael O’Leary and Ryanair for whatever reason, which is their own business, did not compete for the hangar, seek ownership of the hangar or seek a lease for it last September, even though they suggested they needed the hangar to go ahead with a heavy line maintenance operation. However, they never negotiated and they never contacted the DAA about that hangar. They contacted the authority in the past about hangars 1 and 2 and they are using them. Ryanair knew it was available and did not apply for it while another company required it because it is the only hangar that can facilitate the maintenance it required for wide bodied aircraft. Other hangars exist in Dublin Airport to do this job. They are vacant and available.”

Middle of this page:
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20100217.xml&Node=355#N355

It’s total fiction.”

I am afraid, the whole debate today, and especially Michael O’Leary’s contribution, has been a pure waste of effort. Hangar-gate is a total distraction from the issue in my opinion.

The only facts, which deserve to lay on the table now, for everyone to contemplate (most especially the FF/Green coalition) are these: How does a state agency, the Dublin Airport Authority manage to spend €2.0 billion in the last five years – but forget to spend €15 million to buy, as Mr. Mueller himself, CEO of AerLingus described it – a 19 year old hangar building, which doesn’t keep the heat in at night, and is owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland. Which in turn is owned by the government of the United Kingdom.

If Taoiseach Mr. Cowen and Tanaiste Ms. Coughlan had any self respect left, they would be on a Ryanair flight to London right now, to see if they can buy the hangar back from Gordon Brown. And simply cut through all of the rubbish. I dare say, if Albert Reynolds was around, and it was his plane high-jacked, by someone in pursuit of the third secret of Fatima, he would be on a plane journey wherever. BOH.

Thanks, I was meaning to get to that IT article to read. BOH.

“The summation given by Frank Fahey at the end of the meeting is now also worth scrutinising. He read out a pre-arranged commendation of the DAA, thanking them for getting 20 million Euro rent out of Aer Lingus when they could have paid nothing. It seems clear now that Aer Lingus is not the owner of the property.”

I would like to scrutinise deputy Fahy’s summation also. But I have to admit, except for a discourse, like the one we saw yesterday, involving all the CEO’s, of private and public bodies – we would still be a million miles from ‘the truth’. At least the Oireachtas inquiry yesterday got us all a little closer to a meaningful picture of things. And it has gone on record, more importantly.

Even if the interrogation by the Dail deputies was a bit child-ish at times, and deputy Fahy does come across as too innocent, by a long shot. I will qualify that if I may. If deputy Fahy had done as much home work as I have done, on the capital investment program by DAA, he would appreciate the ridiculous contrast in scales. We are talking about billion(s) of euro of investment, in the short space of a few years into the airport projects.

DAA could carry out that investment program, by carefully managing the €600 million per year, cash flow they have. (As a state organisation, DAA receives no funding at all from the state. Neither does DDDA btw) That is why you need real top guys such as Declan Collier about, for those few years, when the big capital investment is being undertaken. Even if Michael O’Leary cannot appreciate that.

However, in the matter of Hangar no. 6, O’Leary most definitely has a point. While DAA were spending hundreds of millions on aprons, air bridges, air-side – and on land-side projects too – getting the electricity power infrastructure sorted out etc – and everything performing with new Co2/energy standards – DAA could have driven some investment into Hangar construction. It was peanuts, compared to the other stuff. They should have hangars for both airlines, because it was obvious there were 2 no. strong airlines present on site.

I remember once reading Michael Lewis’s book, Liar’s Poker. Lewis in the concluding chapter noted, he walked away from Salomon bond trading floor with a lot of money in his pocket. During his time at Salomon brothers, he had learned how to invest a couple of million, here or there, and make that investment pay off. But on the other hand, he noted, he didn’t have a clue how to invest a couple of thousand dollars into an SME. In that case, he would probably end up losing the thousand(s) of dollars of investment.

That is the paradox too with Ryanair and DAA. They are a different culture. Ryanair know precisely what to do with a few million. DAA know what to do with a few hundred million. Hence, it is so difficult for Michael O’Leary to come to terms with that. It was the same in my experience, working for Zoe developments. They could not be convinced to take on the skills of the ‘hundreds of million(s)’ class of management. Hence why they lost their shirts in the end. BOH.

@All
“Ryanair have said all the 500 maintenance jobs the airline offered to create in Dublin have now been lost to other airports.

The company revealed last month that 200 of the positions were being located at Prestwick Airport in Glasgow.

The airline offered to base the 300 remaining jobs at Dublin Airport if the Government helped the carrier acquire Hangar 6 which is occupied by Aer Lingus.

However Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara has said the Government has failed to secure the jobs.”

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/ryanair-govt-has-failed-to-secure-hangar-6-jobs-449294.html

Poster Nickyn on the pin says it best:
“Another great day for Ireland !!!!

What great politicians we have, I have to admire the way they fought with such vigour and the way they left no stone unturned to secure those jobs. They must be really exhausted now from the ‘tough job of politics’. I think we should send them on all expenses paid trip around the world.”