Faire d'income,

I'm confused. The only figure I quoted for 2001 was:

"2001: 50.4 million euro loss"

Not sure where the €130 came from. However, those figures are not my point at all. I 've said it before, AL did make stonking good profits in the late 90's and of course in the year 2000. After that it all went horribly wrong for AL and a lot of other national flag carriers. Someone had to sort it out. In AL's case it fell to WW and he (in my opinion) did what was needed to be done. It wasn't extraordinary what he did, any CEO of a fully private firm worth his salt would have done exactly the same. Difference is they probably would have emptied out the pension fund to fund the redundancy payments and covered it up with creative accounting!

Don't get me wrong, I am not a worshipper of WW but I respect the man's ability which he clearly has. I have worked for many different directors and the true test of any of them has always been their reaction to when the **** hits the fan. The **** hit the fan by the van load for AL. WW reacted correctly - in my opinion.

It came from the Board. That is what they told the Government the loss for the year would be. They subsequently posted the loss as €50m. I would guess the purchase of the last A330 cost over €100m. I would love to know exactly how much they spent on hedging after 911.

I think Mr Ahern should have a good look at the 2001 accounts and the various transactions that occurred at the time.

Reducing the number of staff was hardly an inspired decision. Getting the politicians to accept it was an achievement that Walsh deserves some credit for.

Selling the paintings was a stunt for the impressionable.

"Selling the paintings was a stunt for the impressionable"

Maybe the paintings were by impressionists? (Sorry - couldn't resist!)

Anyway, the Great One is being well and truly carved up for a Sunday roast by the papers, from Matt Cooper in the Sunday Times, to the attached, from the Indo. Whether it's a focus on the outrageousness of attacking someone under Dail privilege, to the fact that it diverted attention away from his own (and his governments' - I use the plural, because it's over the past decade) abysmal record on Aer Lingus.

At least one of the papers has commented on how Ahern's vacillation and SIPTU's refusal to visit planet Earth have played into Michael O'Leary's hands. What an irony, since neither are likely to be on each other's Christmas card lists!

Where do we go from here? Well, hopefully, people will start looking more closely at the Taoiseach's record on aviation issues. It's usually so hard to get him to express an opinion on anything, but when he does so, he really puts his foot in it; I'm not defending Walsh - he isn't the focus of this thread, as much as Ahern. The recent opinion polls, even though they were taken before this debacle, are encouraging. Hopefully the opposition can build on this and take the initiative to focus attention on the need for a positive, constructive and aggressively proactive aviation policy.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independe...issue_id=14075

I think the great fence sitter has changed sides so many times he doesnt know fact from fiction any more. His most recent statements about the health service no really being in crisis just reinforces this. You can be sure he's never had to wait days on a trolley in A&E. Let them eat cake and all that.

His swipe at WW stinks of vote plugging to keep the people of the northside happy along with his cronies in that dinosaur SIPTU. To hell with what is best for the country/company. SIPTU keep harping on about the govt having the ability to invest in EI if they want to. Sounds great except there are far more deserving causes (black holes) such as the health service and education to chuck the money into.:rolleyes:

What about the 'State Holding Company' idea then?

Not 100% sure of the detail of the state holding company notion but is that an extension of the semi state idea over again just another step removed? Also where would the investment come from in this instance ie govt or private investment.

The big decision needed to be made by govt is how do they want the airline to be run. If they are happy to keep investing/bailing out the airline whilst protecting the jobs that are there then fine let it remain in state hands and let them justify the expenditure versus the potential return/strategic value of the airline. However if they want it to have a commercial mandate then it needs to be allowed perform in a commercial manner and take tough decisions when required without worrying about the political ramifications of those decisions. Requires a major mindset change if thats the route they want to go down and following Bertie's outburst god only knows what he thinks is the right thing to do.

So you don't know anything about the State Holding Company idea?
Maybe you need to do some research. Try to think outside the box.

'Take tough decisions'?
Thats just code for 'Shaft the employees'.

The only tough thing that needs doing at ALT now is getting money for expansion. Thats really NOT that tough. Just politically sensitive.

The State Holding Company works well elsewhere - its one option...if you're actually even VAGUELY bothered to think of ANY option beyond 'GET RID OF IT'.

I think GodsCountry has a fair question. Is their a handy definition of a 'state holding company'? And where does the investment come from in such a company?

Having read a lot of Aer Lingus related stuff in the newspapers in Ireland this weekend, mostly taking a fair old dig at Bertie but written with no new insight or ideas, the state holding company was one idea not floated. All any of the journos came up with was why has the floatation been delayed for so long and now it looks like they may have missed the boat. Well from my experience most economics journos talk utter horsepoo (as witnessed by their 100% incorrect predictions prior to the tech stock crash of 2000: "let's all buy eircom and Baltimore shares....."), so much of what they speculate about has to be taken with a rather large lorry load of salt.

However, I'm sure the majority of Irish people (including me) would prefer Aer Lingus to remain an Irish company. But is there a way to do it without incurring the wrath of EU law, unfair competition rules, MOL, etc, etc...?

Just a genuine question, not a cue for anything else.....

Maxalt,

I said I am not 100% familiar with the detail - not no idea. I am perfectly happy for EI to remain in government control in whatever guise as long as it can continue to be a viable entity. I still remain a shareholder in EI and as such want to retain the value of it that I and my colleagues worked hard for. I dont make any apologies for having capitalist leanings and took my chances and left EI when I did. Having a floatation where the govt retain 25.1% and the ESOT retains 14.9% is hardly getting rid of. If the govt are serious about maintaining the strategic asset they and the ESOT still control a very serious block of voting power.

Tough decisions do not necessarily mean "shaft the employees" - in my opinion that is an easy cop out for people cloistered in a semi state mind set where commercial realities are something for management to worry about but the staff isolate themselves from. I believe many of the staff that remain in EI are hard working and have a genuine interest in contributing to the company's sucess but in the same way that sacrifices were made during the survival plan (for which staff were compensated) alot of the current restrictive work practices have to be examined, but this goes back to my previous post - is the company to operate with a commercial mandate or not. If not then fine continue to do what you do but if so then the tough decisions notions apply.

Political Expediency or what?
 

Seems Bertie has at last had the decency to accept that his comments were inappropriate.

RTE is now covering his withdrawal of the earlier comments.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0523/aerlingus.html

As to the reason, we will have to wait and see. It has been suggested locally that the presence of a large number of Aer Lingus workers in the constituency that is represented by Mr Ahern may have been a factor in his comments.

It's clear from the rumblings in the background that there has been a lot more said out of earshot of the press and other politicians:E

Maybe some of the problem is that Bertie apparently HATES flying, and has made that feeling more than clear on several occasions.

It's just a pity that none of them seem to be even remotely capable of thinking with any sort of clarity about anything related to transport issues. Bottom line is that Ireland is fundamentally dependant on transportation for just about everything, but there seems to be no clarity of thought or vision about how to make transportation services successful, or even acceptably accessible. We've seen hiatus with Aer Lingus, the airports, the rail services, Ferry services, and the road systems. Almost all of them have severe problems with structure, efficiency, accessibilty, affordability, and in some cases even availability, but nothing of any real serious quality or signinificance seems to come from the people that are supposed to be leading things in a forward direction. Instead, we get fudge after fiddle after tweak, and the end result is that so many things that are apparent to the dogs in the street are unchanged 10 years later, and likely to remain so for a long time to come.

Such is life in good old laid back Ireland, sure, it it were any more laid back it would be horizontal!


At least he's had the decency to recognise that the comment he made was unacceptable. A small step for mankind, a gigantic leap for a politician:E

Well I never thought I would see the day. This is not back peddling, it's a withdrawal and a written apology!

I think those of us who damned his comment's from the word go on this thread may just have been proved right :)

I think there is a lesson here for Bertie + FF. If you lot want to win a few extra votes next year: go do something positive about AL and EIDW and stop buttering up the north Dublin vote with empty ****e rhetoric that does nothing to improve anybody's life.

I think there's an irony here as well. People (myself amongst them!)
give out about the Dear Leader for playing his cards too close to his
chest and not expressing an opinion about anything.

And when he does ...

Poor old Bertie! Still, you're quite right, RogerIrrelevant, he needs to
recognise that in his position, he's more than just a TD, he's a
national leader and regardless of whether or not he likes aviation, he
needs to recognise just how important it is to the economy - and empower
it to maximise its potential.

Good piece in Indo about Bertie …

Maybe it's just me, but Bertie's outburst seems to be a turning point; people now recognising the Taoiseach for his style, his avoidance of any substantial issues. Everytihng is calculated, with no evident political principles or vision.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independe...issue_id=14089

It's important for leadership to be shown, particularly on such a vital issue.