Ryanair has accused Aer Lingus of a “cover up” over a flawed redundancy scheme that landed the airline with a €30 million bill.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary has demanded an extraordinary general meeting at Aer Lingus to investigate who authorised the special payment to the Irish Revenue Commissioners.
According to the Irish Times, Ryanair is calling for the publication of an independent “Deloitte/McCann Fitzgerald report†into a “leave and rehire schemeâ€.
Under the scheme, the airline made 913 staff redundant and then rehired 715 of them on less generous terms.
When the scheme fell foul of Irish Revenue, Aer Lingus was forced to pay a €30 million bill, which O’Leary claims cost 90% of the airline’s profit.
Ryanair’s call came as Aer Lingus reported operating profits of €94.6m for the third quarter of 2011, 19.4% up on the same time last year.
In an interim management statement, the airline said the rise was due to a strong summer, with revenues for the three months from July to September up by 5.9% to €435.8m.
