Originally Posted by hobarthoney
I see this as a way for Ryan to expand and from what I read they plan to grow the Aer Lingus brand globally but I am sure this will take a long while to happen.
Ryanair is quoting the AF/KLM merger as their model for this, keeping the EI brand separate but benefiting from access to the "cheaper airplane acquisition by FR" and "cheaper financing by FR". So they are portraying it as a capital cost play (and downplaying labour savings, route consolidation or other operational changes). As for the EI employees cleaning up due to their stock ownership, they own 2.2% of EI directly (and there is an employee trust that owns another 10%). FR has now bought 16% of EI, at prices ranging between 2.20 and 2.80 euro/share, and is offering 2.80 for the balance; however the Irish government owns a blocking interest, so the deal boils down to politics. I cannot see how this can ever work politically, particularly as the EI valuation was revised downwards repeatedly, apparently to below market value based on the FR bid. Finally FR is an all-Boeing shop (and has a contract with Boeing requiring all new aircraft be Boeing). To put things into perspective, FR has over 400 Boeing planes ordered, while EI has a fleet of about 7 A330 (long haul) and 27 A320/321s. Ryanair has a market cap of about USD 10 billion, or bigger than AF/KLM and AA, to put it into perspective.