O Leary will:
a) Get 51% of Lingus
b) Flog off long haul and the Heathrow slots
c) Run short haul as a seperate company to Ryanair
d) Make it lose money deliberately and in a few years time wind up the business
Thus achieving the elimination of its prime competitor in his home market, placing the IAA even deeper in his pocket, upgrading his strangle hold on Dublin Airport to a garrot hold, settling Tony Ryans old scores with Lingus AND generating himself acres of newsprint whilst spending the warchest instead of having to hand it back the unwashed ordinary shareholder via dividend.
Any sentimentality for good old Shamrock will be used as toilet paper. The very small airline as it stand with a foot in low cost a foot in long haul and foot in full service has no future now it is out of government hands.
Sad fact.
AP