Issue 772 21 September - 27 September 2012
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Ryanair call truce BUDGET airline Ryanair will not be banned from flying to Tenerife or mainland Spain following a partial truce between Irish and Spanish aviation authorities.
The two bodies have not seen eye to eye recently following a number of diversions of Ryanair flights to alternative airports in Spain. There was talk of Spain imposing a three-year ban on Ryanair, which was dismissed by the airline’s chairman Michael O’Leary, who insisted they could not possibly enforce it as it was out of their jurisdiction The pact between them comes after yet another incident of the Irish company’s planes being switched from its intended destination. They have agreed, jointly, to investigate Sunday’s diversion to Madrid of a Ryanair flight from Paris to Tenerife after a “a small technical problem”. It could have been a meltdown point following much Spanish criticism of recent incidents in their airspace involving Europe’s largest low-cost airline. Instead, a meeting was set up between the countries’ airsafety authorities in Dublin on Tuesday. It was underlined then that that there is now “good cooperation” between the IAA and its Spanish counterpart, the EASA (State Agency for Air Security). Spanish authorities were already investigating emergency landings by three Ryanair planes in Valencia on 26th July after they had dropped near to their minimum required fuel. Ryanair retaliated by accusing
Irish airline still at loggerheads with Spanish aviation chiefs
Spain’s aviation authorities of falsifying information on incidents involving its planes - a charge swiftly rejected by Spanish officials.. The Irish airline, which last year carried over 30 million passengers in Spain, is the country’s largest passenger carrier. And the Irish Government confirmed at the meeting that Ryanair does comply with the security norms, as the Michael O’Leary, has insisted all along. The reassurance was given to Spanish Transport Secretary MICHAEL O’LEARY has certainly won a major battle against the Spanish following his release yesterday (Thursday) of a joint Irish/Spanish Government statement. It fully exonerated Ryanair over the three July emergency procedures in Valencia, and it also put the airline “on a par with safest EU airlines”. The official Irish Aviation Authority report confirms that Ryanair: 1. Carried fuel in excess of
Carmen Librero. Also present were Ángel Luis Arias, Spain’s General Director of Civil Aviation, and Tom O’Mahony, the Irish Secretary-General for Transport. The Irish Government
insisted that the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) rigorously monitored the operations of Ryanair, and that the airline met all the safety norms. The meeting came after outspoken Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary posted two open letters on his web page to outline his case. And just to enforce his views, O’Leary, who generally has the last word, launched a scathing attack on EASA in one of the letters, addressed to Ana Pastor, the Spanish Minister of Development.
In it, he called for the suspension of its director, Isabel Maestre, for “provoking” Sunday’s delayed flight to Tenerife, as well as having “falsified records to wrongly accuse Ryanair of violating Spanish laws and regulations”. He wants her sidelined until the investigation against Ryanair into recent incidents “has been resolved”. But Spain hit back immediately and, according to Spain’s Ombudsman Office, “Fines totalling 2.3 million euros imposed on Ryanair since
2007 have failed to modify the actions of the airline”. Librero also retaliated by the Irish authorities to increase and strengthen the strict supervision of Ryanair in Spain. So despite the handshakes and vows of peace between the warring factions, it looks as though the battle will continue for the time being. The only hope is that Spain do not find a way to ground Ryanair and its irrepressible chairman, Michael O’Leary, who is not accustomed to taking No for an answer!
O’Leary’s aircraft are exonerated flight-plan fuel requirements 2. Diverted to Valencia with more than final diversion fuel 3. Correctly declared emergency procedure in accordance with EU Ops regulations The IAA investigation, in which two Spanish AESA officials participated, confirms that Ryanair’s three crews correctly “declared an Emergency in accordance with EU Ops”. A company statement
said: “Ryanair welcomes this report, which conclusively disproves the recent false claims in the Spanish media that Ryanair’s aircraft carried less than minimum fuel and/or were in breach of EU regulations. “Ryanair also welcomed this week’s joint statement of the Irish and Spanish Transport Ministries which confirmed that “Ryanair’s safety standards are on a
par with the safest airlines in Europe”. “Ryanair now calls on the Spanish Ministry (Fomento) to take up Ryanair’s invitation to send a team of inspectors to Dublin to examine Ryanair’s operations which will confirm, as the IAA did yesterday, that “Ryanair’s safety standards are on a par with the safest airlines in Europe.” O’Leary said in Madrid
yesterday: “We welcome this official report into the Valencia procedures on the 26th July. We hope that the Fomento will now accept Ryanair’s invitation to inspect our operations in Dublin in order to put an end to the false claims and misinformation in the Spanish media in recent weeks about Ryanair’s outstanding 28-year safety record.”