Articolo a pagamento, ma sembra evidente il sunto. O'Leary chiede alla Comunita' Europea di vigilare sull'accordo fra LH e AB.
Ryanair CEO: EC Should Look Into Lufthansa–Air Berlin Deal
http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/ryanair-ceo-ec-should-look-lufthansa-air-berlin-deal
BRUSSELS—Ryanair believes the pending deal between Lufthansa and Air Berlin should be scrutinized by the EU’s competition authorities, but the LCC’s CEO is not hopeful that the Brussels-based body actually will look into it.
Lufthansa and Air Berlin are Germany’s largest and second-largest airlines, respectively.
“Remarkably, and once again, it looks like Brussels [the European Commission] will not do anything about [the deal]. They blocked the proposed merger between Ryanair and Aer Lingus—which was going to shake up the foundations of the European aviation—three times. Yet, Lufthansa can buy Air Berlin,” Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary told Aviation Daily here amid the LCC’s announcement of its expanded summer 2017 schedule for Belgium.
Lufthansa’s supervisory board is expected to decide Sept. 28 on an agreement to take over as many as 40 narrowbody aircraft from Air Berlin, and to integrate part of the latter’s short-haul network (Aviation Daily, Sept. 27). The aircraft are to be operated on a wet-lease basis for Lufthansa’s low-fare division Eurowings, and Air Berlin will dispose of all routes that do not touch its main German bases in Dusseldorf and Berlin.
The transaction would be a win-win for the German airlines. It would allow Lufthansa to rapidly grow its Eurowings division and to defend its German market against the aggressive expansion of Ryanair ad EasyJet, while Air Berlin would be able to reduce its losses.
Ryanair has not yet approached the European competition watchdog regarding the German deal in-the-making, O’Leary said. He noted that the EC maintains it cannot review any agreement before the deal is concluded. “I suspect that Lufthansa and Air Berlin have had signals from the EC already. It is highly likely that they been interacting with the EC on this transaction,” he said.
O’Leary also is not betting on an assessment of a possible Lufthansa–Air Berlin tie-up by Germany’s national competition regulator. “When there is German interbreeding, the Germans are happy about it,” he said.
The deal will lead to consolidation in the German short-haul market, he said. “Eurowings will be losing even more money than it does already now,” O’Leary said, adding that this ultimately will be beneficial to Ryanair: “That also means that we will probably grow even faster in the German market in the next year or two. “
The LCC is targeting to increase passenger numbers in Germany to 16 million in the current financial year ending March 2017, up from 10 million in the prior financial year (Aviation Daily, Sept. 7). As part of it planned growth in the country, it will expand its base at Berlin Schonefeld Airport with 19 new routes in summer 2017, bringing its network from Berlin Schonefeld to 46 destinations.
Separately, Ryanair on Sept. 27 said it will grow and add four new destinations to its bases at Brussels Airport and Brussels South Charleroi Airport, increasing the network to 17 routes and 79 routes, respectively. It will also increase frequencies on six existing routes. Ryanair anticipates carrying 9 million passengers from Belgium in 2017.