Ryanair hits out at Air Malta restructuring consultants

Ryanair deputy CEO Michael Cawley yesterday lashed out at the consultants working on Air Malta’s restructuring, Ernst & Young, saying: “They should be fired. You should not pay a fee for that rubbish.”

He said the consultancy company was completely mistaken when it allegedly claimed in a confidential report the national carrier’s troubles were primarily due to the presence of low-cost airlines.

“Ryanair does not compete with Air Malta,” Mr Cawley said, pointing out the low-cost airline operated from completely new routes like Krakow, in Poland, attracting a different type of client.

“Air Malta’s difficulties were flagged long before we arrived on the scene,” he added, pointing out that if a legacy airline like Air Malta were to collapse because of low-cost airlines, this would be a “unique” situation that had not happened anywhere else.

Ireland’s national airline, Aer Lingus, he said, was thriving despite competing directly with Ryanair.

It is not clear how Mr Cawley established that the auditing firm had suggested Ryanair was posing a problem to Air Malta because the report on the airline’s restructuring has not been made public and attempts to clarify this point yesterday were unsuccessful. However, there have been reports, citing anonymous sources, to this effect in the press.

Mr Cawley said Air Malta should rethink its business model to ensure more efficiency and competitiveness for the benefit of the taxpayers and consumers.

He said it would also help if Malta International Airport cut its charges, which he claimed were four times higher than the average levied by other airports across Europe. This is what made some passengers choose to travel to other destinations that had much cheaper airport charges, resulting in cheaper airfares.

Before addressing the press, Mr Cawley held a meeting with the Malta Tourism Authority making proposals for long-term growth.

“We see fantastic potential for growth,” he said, adding none of Malta’s markets were saturated – “not even Britain”.

Ryanair’s model, he said, made it possible for people to buy three or four trips for the price of one and for people who previously could not afford to travel to finally do so, with an average airfare of €34.

Malta serves as one of Ryanair’s bases, hosting an aircraft and flying to 21 routes but the airline now wants to add 17 fresh routes and bring “at least” one more plane to operate flights from the island.

This, Mr Cawley said, was a long-term plan that to be set in motion early next year. Ryanair estimates this would bring 200,000 more tourists each year and generate more than 400 new jobs.

Asked how Ryanair had been affected by the Libyan crisis, Mr Cawley said there had been no cancellations to Malta and he was not expecting there to be any.

Ryanair has had to shift its operations in Trapani (which is being used for military purposes) to Palermo.

Reacting to Mr Cawley’s comments, MIA said its charges had remained unchanged since March 2006, adding a simple comparative exercise showed it was “surely not” levying the most expensive charges in Europe. It listed Antalya, Munich, Budapest, Birmingham, Orly, Lyon, Larnaca and Athens as airports charging higher fees.

“Contrary to the picture being depicted, Malta Airport is definitively within the European average in so far as its airport charges are concerned,” MIA said, adding it spent millions of euros each year to maintain safety and security standards to international levels and ensure the quality of service is “second to none”.

Ernst & Young could not be reached for comment.