Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus has hit out at Irish policies regarding air traffic: "It doesn't take a genius to work out what will happen when you put a €10 surcharge on airfares in the middle of the worst recession on record - your traffic will go into free-fall. If this results in a massive hike in user fees, you have initiated a vicious spiral which, for the sake of the Irish economy and the travelling public, cannot be allowed to take hold." Strong words. But who is he?

Schulte-Strathaus is the Secretary General of the Association of European Airlines (AEA). And thus speaking for several of the most important airlines in Europe, amongst the 33 members are well-known names like Iberia, Lufthansa, Swiss, British Airways, Air France and Aer Lingus. And these are amongst the angry crowd gearing up for another Irish budget in December ... and further expected costs.

The situation of airlines is, to say the least, difficult: Just months after the introduction of the Irish air passenger tax, which has added € 10 to passenger journeys and contributed to a fall in passenger numbers at Irish airports of 15% this summer, comes the news that Ireland's air navigation provider will increase the fees it charges its airline customers by 17% next year. And we'll have to wait what more surprises the December budget might bring!

As the AEA so bluntly asked in a press release: "Ireland Determined to Become a No-Fly Zone?"

Hot on the heels of Ryanair's rise in revenue comes news that Aer Lingus seems to be heading further on in its downward spiral - revenue at the end of September was down around ten percent and net cash shrunk to € 399 million - compared with € 653.9 million a year earlier.

While restructuring, route changes and redundancies are already in the pipeline, assets are coming up for ales as well: According to media reports the fleet will be cut down. Aer Lingus seems to be is considering offers on four A330s, three A321s and four A320s. As the number of planes in the fleet currently stands at 44, this would mean a reduction by 25%. It is difficult to see this happening without some kind of lease-back deal to cover the bare bones of the route network.

Potential buyers of Aer Lingus' planes will certainly get no spring chickens ... the Airbuses for sale are all believed to be at least eight years old.

There should be cause for celebration in Ryanair's austere HQ, revenues for Ireland's largest airline on September 30th 2009 were up by 80% compared to last year. But it is not as it seems - despite a rise in passenger numbers by 15% to 36,400,000 ... the lower fares meant declining profits here, masked by a massive reduction in fuel costs.

CEO Michael O'Leary gave the details: "Ryanair's ability to grow both traffic and profits during the half year is a testament to the strength of Ryanair's lowest fare model, and our relentless cost discipline. However these results are heavily distorted by a 42% fall in fuel costs, which has masked a significant 17% decline in average fares."

He is, however, adamant as ever that Ryanair will "be substantially profitable, at a time when many of our competitors are losing money, consolidating or going bust."

Now that's what I call interesting - three men who are normally at each others throats a suddenly singing from the same hymn sheet: Christoph Müller (Aer Lingus), Geoffrey O'Byrne-White (Cityjet) and Michael O'Leary (Ryanair) in rare unison asked the Irish Government to axe the €10 tourist tax, introduced on 1st April last (an auspicious date, but it was no joke).

The airline CEOs raised the following concerns:

• Since the €10 tourist tax was imposed, the monthly traffic at Dublin Airport has fallen by up to 15%.
• In 2009 Dublin Airport will lose some 3,000,000 passengers, as traffic falls from 24 million to around 21 million.

Doom and gloom indeed, especially since other European countries act markedly different: Both the Belgian and Dutch governments have recently scrapped passenger taxes to stimulate tourism and the Greek and Spanish governments have reduced airport charges.

Well, let's see what December's budget will bring ...