Originally Posted by
ian001
It appears that as part of Ryanair's commitments to secure regulatory approval to acquire Aer Lingus, BA will take over Aer Lingus's services to Ireland for a period of at least three years and in doing so acquire the right to purchase the slots belonging to Aer Lingus.
There's no certainty that the European Commission will clear Ryanair's takeover but if it did and BA acquired Aer Lingus's slots (currently 3.3% of LHR slots), it could take BA's share of LHR slots near to 56% (and cause more terminal planning problems!).
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28317d80-4...#axzz2F3kADQ1J
Which simply goes to prove that both FR and BA still have quite a way to go when it comes to understanding the concept of fair and open competition. Moving from two airlines to one serving the largest ex-Ireland air route (DUB-LHR) is not typically seen as better competition by normal human beings (as opposed to all airline CEOs)