I was in the very first instance when Fr bought some of EI stock and made it plans known, not overly against the idea. However, now I am. MOL would love to reduce DUB airport to 1 significant customer and hold the state to randsom, so anything that can be done to prevent FR taking over has to be a positive one. FR is great at what it does based on its strategy, which to be fair it has stuck to rigorously.
EI has emerged strongly returning profit when in the vast majority of its markets it is faced with Ryanair competition.
However, take an example and I know this is going to be controversial, Dublin Alicante, the route has less flights than Belfast Alicante, and the prices are huge by comparison, well certainly on dates that I look at. The schedules often are a mirror image especially in winter. The prices dont reflect to me a big lot of competition, and in other markets FR have reduced frequency and this is reflected in both airlines capacity London market (been in decline for FR), Brussels market, Paris market plus a few others.