THE DUBLIN Airport Authority (DAA) is to take a complaint to the Irish Stock Exchange about comments made to the media yesterday by Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary that the state-owned airport manager was bankrupt and would default on its €1 billion debt.
At a press conference yesterday to announce the further curtailment of Ryanair services at Dublin airport this winter, Mr O’Leary was asked if he thought the DAA would default on its debt, which comprises publicly quoted bonds and loans from the European Investment Bank.
“Yes, I think it’s inevitable that the DAA will default on its debt,” he told reporters. “The DAA is effectively bankrupt. They are the biggest and most spectacular of the reckless developers in recent years and it’s not just confined to wasting €1.2 billion on T2 .”
“If you’ve wasted €1.2 billion on a terminal building that you can’t pay for unless you get a 40 per cent increase in fees and now your traffic is plummeting, you are going to go bust, which I think will happen to the DAA. It’s what they deserve to happen to them.”
His comments were made in the context of the cost of building T2, due to open in November, and the aviation regulator’s decision to allow the DAA increase passengers charges at Dublin airport to help pay for the new facility.
Mr O’Leary has strongly opposed the increase in passenger charges and wants users of T2 to pay for the facility, describing it as a waste of money. Ryanair passengers will not use T2. He said yesterday the terminal should be handed over to the National Asset Management Agency.
In a response provided to The Irish Times, a spokesman for DAA said: "The DAA rejects in the strongest terms Ryanair's scurrilous claims in relation to its financial position. At the end of last year, we had €635 million in cash and €560 million worth of undrawn borrowing facilities.
“The DAA intends making a formal complaint to the Irish Stock Exchange in relation to this matter, as it is unacceptable that a chief executive of a publicly quoted company can make such totally misleading and potentially damaging statements in relation to the financial affairs of another company that has publicly quoted bonds.”
This is not the first time that Mr O’Leary’s comments have landed him in hot water this year. In March, Mr O’Leary apologised to High Court judge Peter Kelly for misrepresenting him in a letter he had sent to Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey. The judge later said that “the truth and Ryanair are uncomfortable bed fellows”.
Following the hearing in March, a contrite Mr O’Leary said: “I will certainly have to take a lot more care to make sure that letters . . . are factually accurate in every respect.”
Ryanair yesterday announced it would reduce its aircraft based in Dublin from 14 to 12 this winter.
It plans to close six routes during October to March. These include flights to Bournemouth, Budapest and Prague.
Ryanair said the move was prompted by an increase in passenger charges in May and the Government’s €10 travel tax. It said this would reduce passenger traffic by 500,000 this winter and 100 jobs at the airline would move to other airports in Europe.
