There’ll be more consolidation of Europe’s airlines in coming months as higher fuel costs weed out unviable carriers, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has claimed.
«There is no doubt that Europe is moving towards a similar out-turn as North America, with consolidation taking us towards four or five very large major airlines in Europe,» he said.
Mr O’Leary said that there will be «other opportunities» for Ryanair in mergers and acquisitions. The airline ditched efforts last autumn to buy Italian carrier Alitalia to focus on fixing its pilot rostering failure.
«If IAG or Lufthansa were to acquire Norwegian, for example, I think it’s inevitable that there would be significant competition divestments coming out of that and we would certainly want to play a role in any"¦ divestments that will arise out of a restructuring or a takeover of either an Alitalia or a Norwegian or any of the loss-making airlines at the moment,» he said.
IAG, which owns Aer Lingus and is headed by Willie Walsh, recently bought a near 5pc stake in Norwegian. It was reported yesterday that IAG plans to table a fresh, €1.5bn indicative offer for the Scandinavian carrier.
Mr O’Leary claimed yesterday that Norwegian would «go bust» by the end of the year as fuel prices climbed…
