RYANAIR CHIEF executive Michael O’Leary has admitted that the airline operates a monopoly at Shannon, Knock and Kerry airports and on most routes out of Dublin.

Advancing the case for the take-over of Aer Lingus, Mr O’Leary said: “The usual question that is put to us is ‘ah, you just want a monopoly’ and I answer ‘I already have one: I have a monopoly at Shannon; I have a monopoly in Kerry; I have a monopoly in Stansted; I have a monopoly at Prestwick, Scotland.”

Addressing a Shannon Chamber of Commerce function, Mr O’Leary warned: “If the offer for Aer Lingus doesn’t succeed, Aer Lingus will be left as a very small peripheral, loss-making airline that is going to stumble along from crisis to crisis, from restructuring to restructuring and, whether you like it or not, Ryanair is going to finish up in a monopoly position in Ireland in the next number of years, simply because Aer Lingus cannot compete with us.”

Citing the case of the Shannon monopoly where Ryanair is expected to account for almost two-thirds of traffic this year, Mr O’Leary said: “We got a monopoly in Shannon. Why don’t I just increase the fares to €300? I’d love to, except we can’t grow by 20 per cent annually with €300 fares.”

Mr Leary said that the only way the airline can grow at 20 per cent is to further reduce its low fares at Shannon next year.

The Ryanair proposal “is the best opportunity to guarantee long-term competition between Aer Lingus and Ryanair”, he said.