Cawley defends Ryanair’s patriotism

HAVING charged passengers for the use of wheelchairs and mused publicly about the potential of raising money through charging passengers for the use of toilets, Ryanair doesn’t have a reputation for worrying about anything other than the bottom line.

 

However this week, its deputy chief executive told The Clare Champion it’s a patriotic company and part of the reason it is incensed about its proposals for Shannon not being accepted is that the potential to create hundreds of Irish jobs won’t be realised.

When Michael Cawley was asked, tongue in cheek, if his offer on Shannon was being made for patriotic reasons, he became somewhat animated.

“I’ve four children, boy, I have two of them living abroad at the moment. I’m interested in them having jobs in this country. When Mr Varadkar stands up and tells me that he’s presiding over the same debacle in his family and is still prepared not to give us an opportunity in Shannon to create hundreds of jobs there, that’s fine, but I’m pretty p***ed off when I hear people telling us that we’re not patriotic in our offer. I am patriotic, I have a personal self-interest here.

“Michael [O’Leary] has four children. they’re not of working age yet but mine are and I’ve one in Australia and one in Holland and I wish that they were back in this country. Don’t let anyone tell me that we’re not f***ing patriotic in this company, we are.”

He said that all things being equal, Shannon would be one of Ryanair’s preferred airports to do business in.

“I would give jobs for people down in Shannon if we got the same deal that we got abroad. But I have a job to keep here and I’m not going to short-sell the shareholders. I can get this deal in 30 or 40 places around Europe but I’d give it to Shannon on the break of the ball because it would create Irish jobs.”

When he was director of Shannon Airport, Martin Moroney stated around 70% of Ryanair passengers at Shannon were people flying away from Ireland for holidays and breaks, which makes Ryanair’s predictions that hundreds of jobs would be created locally dubious. However, Mr Cawley said there was a more even distribution of outbound and inbound passengers.

“Just about 50% were outbound. People look at Malaga and Tenerife and sure we had big outbound [passenger numbers] but there was massive inbound from London, Frankfurt, Bergamo in Italy, Manchester, a lot of other places like that. That’s where the tourists are going to come from in the future. The Atlantic is maxed out. You had no business from the Atlantic from Aer Lingus over the winter.

“People need to focus more on Europe and the UK as a big source of tourism into this country. The American market is static, it might grow a percent or two, the big opportunity is in Europe.”

Some claim that if Ryanair do increase their level of business at Shannon, it’ll rule out the possibility of bringing in services from a range of carriers. But claims that there could be an overdependence on Ryanair are rather moot, given the very low passenger figures, Mr Cawley feels.

“Who are they dependent on at the moment? Who have they got? We reduced our base in Shannon in 2008. in four years, they’ve come up with nothing. And they’re telling everyone they won’t give us the deal we’re looking for.

“There isn’t exactly a queue at the door there, is there? I don’t know how long it takes and how many weeds they’re going to pick up from the runway down there before they realise that Ryanair is the best opportunity they have. The Department of Transport in Dublin doesn’t recognise anything west of f***ing Leixlip and they certainly aren’t friends of the Shannon Airport Authority or the Shannon Region.”

He said the Department of Transport are turning their back on commercial principles, meaning jobs won’t be created.

“As a person who has been involved in Shannon, and I was involved in the original Shannon deal about eight years ago with Pat Shanahan, I just can’t understand it. I do all the discussions and negotiations with airports around Europe and the attitude is so entirely different and uncommercial compared to what we meet elsewhere that I can’t fathom it… There’s a direct co-relation between the two of these things, inactivity by this Government and emigration.

“I bemoan that, frankly, and I’d do anything to fix it. Ryanair has its own tangible offer, by the way. We have offers for Dublin and Cork as well, we certainly have one for Shannon but it seems to me that the department and minister don’t want it to happen. I think the real question for them is what’s their alternative? After four years, what’s their alternative?”

He said no investment would be needed at Shannon for the Ryanair proposal to be accepted, while he also cast doubt on how much independence Shannon will really have, even after the separation from the Dublin Airport Authority.

“Every passenger we bring through will bring non-aeronautical revenue that is not there today, bring jobs which are not there today. We told them specifically and I told your colleague and the chap from The Limerick Leader that we don’t want a penny extra spent on infrastructure at Shannon, it doesn’t need it.

“The passengers don’t go on their holidays to airport. They come into a region, they’re just passing through airports. They need to put better shops there, that kind of stuff but the shopkeepers will do that themselves, they just need the space. If there’s two million people going through there, rather than 1.3 million, the shopkeepers will come, I can tell you. But the airport itself doesn’t need to spend any more money.

“It seems to me it’s a home run, that they should say, why are we looking at it? Why are we not accepting a deal that offers only upside and no extra cost? I can’t believe it but apparently that’s the attitude, they’re not going to do it, judging from what the minister said.

“I’m not sure but it seems to me they’ll still have influence even when the so-called independent board is appointed down there, it seems to me the department will still run it,” he concluded.