Michael O\u2019Leary claims there was \u201cvery little appetite\u201d at government level for the facility up to 500 jobs\n<\/p>\n
Ryanair group chief executive Michael O\u2019Leary said that while Shannon was considered in the early stages for the facility, it no longer is. Derry is the only possible candidate on the island.<\/p>\n
He claimed there was \u201cvery little appetite\u201d at government level for the investment in Shannon.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Leary said a final decision on the locations of the facilities would be made before Christmas. One will be in eastern Europe, likely in Poland or one of the Baltic states. Each site will be capable of overhauling about 200 engines a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had some discussions with Shannon, but there was very little government support,\u201d said Mr O\u2019Leary. \u201cIreland is operating at full employment, certainly in the aviation space. There was very little appetite at government level for an investment of this scale or the creation of these jobs in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n
The news will come as a blow to the Shannon region, which already has a strong aviation sector, with aircraft overhaul, jet leasing and other related business based there.<\/p>\n
While Derry remains in the running, it\u2019s not among the lead contenders, according to Mr O\u2019Leary. \u201cThe Northern Ireland authorities are very keen to be selected,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are much more active.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s certainly not going to be the first one chosen,\u201d said Mr O\u2019Leary. of Derry. \u201cIt would be running well behind. We\u2019re in active negotiations with six sites and it\u2019s probably running at number four or five.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Leary pointed out that a decision on where to base a facility in western Europe isn\u2019t dependent on government incentives. \u201cEach site is going to cost us about \u20ac400m,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re talking about small change coming from government. What really will drive a decision on these sites is demographics, the availability of trained labour.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Northern Ireland, there is a lot of very skilled aviation labour in Belfast, which has a history with Bombardier and others, but there\u2019s nothing in Derry,\u201d he added. \u201cSo, Derry is one of the [potential] sites, but the issue it struggles with is the availability of trained labour and you\u2019re not going to get loads of people from Belfast to decamp to Derry, for obvious historical reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
The budget for each facility includes about \u20ac250m in construction costs and \u20ac150m for the purchase of spare engine parts. Ryanair currently has an engine overhaul and repair contract with GE.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe labour side is the much bigger driver of this,\u201d he said. \u201cWhether a government comes up with a grant package of \u20ac20m or \u20ac30m doesn\u2019t make any difference in a \u20ac400m site.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two engine-repair and overhaul sites will meet Ryanair\u2019s needs for up to 15 years.<\/p>\n
Speaking after Ryanair\u2019s annual general meeting, Mr O\u2019Leary said that the airline group expects the cost of engine maintenance to soar in coming years. Having its own overhaul facilities will insulate the group from \u201crapidly escalating engine repair costs going forward\u201d.<\/p>\n
He estimated that the market rate for engine overhaul will eventually jump from the current rate of about $11m to $20m.<\/p>\n
The airline is already in advanced negotiations with GE and CFM regarding a long-term engine spares support package, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael O\u2019Leary claims there was \u201cvery little appetite\u201d at government level for the facility up to 500 jobs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,24512,1843,623],"class_list":{"0":"post-57280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-john-mulligan","13":"tag-michael-oleary","14":"tag-ryanair"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}