EASYJET TO BUY GB AIRWAYS
Ryanair Holdings PLC
23 January 2008
EASYJET CLEARED TO BUY GB AIRWAYS
ANOTHER APPROVED EU AIRLINE MERGER EXPOSES COMMISSION BIAS
Ryanair, Europe's largest low fares airline today (Wednesday, 23rd January 2008)
again questioned the EU's politically motivated prohibition of the Ryanair / Aer
Lingus merger, following the latest approved European airline merger between
Easyjet and GB Airways.
This Easyjet / GB Airways merger (which was cleared by the UK's Office of Fair
Trading last week) is the latest in a long sequence of approved European airline
mergers (11 since 2002) and exposes the European Commission's double standards
in applying a unique and discriminatory set of rules to block Ryanair's bid for
Aer Lingus, (which combined represents less than 5% of EU air travel) while
approving much larger mergers such as Air France / KLM and Lufthansa / Swiss.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| APPROVED EU MERGERS |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1990 | AF / Air Inter / UTA (100%) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1993 | BA / DanAir (100%) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1996 | LH / SAS (Co-op ag.) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2002 | SAS / Spanair ( 74%) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2002 | LH / Austrian (Co-op ag.) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2003 | BA / IB / GB Airways (Co-op ag.) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2004 | AF / KLM (100%) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2005 | LH / Swiss (100%) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2005 | LH / Eurowings (100%) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2006 | AB / DBA / LTU (Ger - BKA) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007 | Flybe / BA Connect (UK - OFT) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007 | EZ / GB Airways (UK - OFT) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007 | AB / Germania (Ger - BKA) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007 | AF / KLM - VLM (100%) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2008 | AF / KLM - Alitalia (100%) |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| PROHIBITED EU MERGERS |
+-------------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007 | Ryanair / Aer Lingus |
+-------------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| | |
+-------------+--------------------------------------------------------+
By prohibiting the Ryanair / Aer Lingus merger, the European Commission broke
all airline merger precedents and ignored its own competition rules, in order to
serve the narrow vested interests of the Irish Government. Since the
prohibition, Aer Lingus has increased its fares and raised fuel surcharges,
whereas the pro consumer terms of Ryanair's bid guaranteed a fares reduction and
the removal of Aer Lingus' unfair fuel surcharges, saving EU passengers at least
€100m p.a.
Speaking today, Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary said;
'This latest approved European airline merger (Easyjet / GB Airways)
makes the European Commission's decision to block Ryanair's bid for Aer
Lingus untenable. The continuing wave of European airline consolidation
clearly demonstrates that the European Commission is applying unfair and
discriminatory rules to Ryanair, while encouraging all other European
airlines to merge and consolidate. The prohibition of Ryanair's bid for
Aer Lingus, which guaranteed over €100m p.a. in passenger savings
including the removal of Aer Lingus' unjustified fuel surcharges was a
biased, politically motivated, anti consumer decision.
'As always with the European Commission, there is one set of rules for
the flag carriers and a discriminatory set of rules for Ryanair. We
again call on the European Commission to end this politically corrupt
bias towards Ryanair by applying to it the same competition and merger
rules they apply to Europe's flag carrier airlines.
'The spotlight on the European Commission's bias will intensify further
when it rubber stamps other mergers such as the ones presently
contemplated between Air France/KLM and Alitalia and/or Lufthansa/Swiss
and British Midlands'.
Ends. Wednesday, 23rd January 2008
For Further Information:
Peter Sherrard - Ryanair Robert Marshall - Murray Consultants
Tel: 00 353 1 812 1228 Tel: 00 353 1 4980 300
This information is provided by RNS
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