While not wanting to defend Ryanair or O'Leary, do Aer Lingus even need the hangar under their current announced plans? Seems like a waste of money on the part of EI to be renting such a large space and not using it at the moment. If the hangar is only used for A-Checks then surely a two bay hangar would be sufficient for the short range fleet?
The minister was also quoted today as saying that Aer Lingus need the hangar as it's the only wide-body capable hangar at the airport. Have they rendered Hangar 5 inaccessible now? I seem to remember the B747's being accomodated quite happily in there. Are the A330's hangared in Dublin for A-Checks or are they done in Shannon?
The open question in all of this is what is Aer Lingus' long term plan for maintenance of the fleet. Dermot Mannion and his team seemed quite intent on outsourcing with base maintenance going to ST/TAT, A330 engineering going to LHT etc. but Christoph Mueller seems more intent on bringing some of these services in-house. From memory the lease term on the hangar is 20 years. I see the creation of the Aer Lingus (Ireland) Ltd. and the hanager lease as first steps down this road (i.e. hiring the SRT line guys into an Aer Lingus Ltd. subsidiary company). The base maintenance contracts run for 10 years to 2018. Who knows, you may see the checks being accomplished in-house again in the future once the TAT agreement finishes! The worldwide A320 family and A330 fleets are growing and so too will the maintenance requirements of those fleets. Perhaps Chistoph Mueller is keeping some maintenance know how in the company in the event a sound business case could be made for doing in-house and third party work in Dublin?