I agree entirely with David Bentley. O'leary is playing a game with M A N and someone is going to his fingers badly burnt. We will have to hope it is not the commuters of the north who deserve a better service than they will get with ryannair. It would be more to everyone's advantage in the north to have network airlines who provide a service that the people of northern england not only need but deserve rather than Ryannair.

james robertson

I wonder what deal has been done here? It was only in May that O'Leary was talking up Leeds Bradford Airport, promising to grow its passenger numbers there to one million, arguing that his services at LBA were winning passengers from Manchester and claiming that passenger numbers at MAN were in "terminal decline". Has he frightened or bullied MAG into a deal that will have an adverse effect on airlines that had chosen to support it because he has spare capacity he doesn't know what else to do with? Some of these routes were served last time Ryanair was here and didn't exactly set the world on fire. MAG would do us more of a favour by filling both short and long haul gaps in critical capital and commercial city routes with network airlines or Manchester will never be the 'global city' it aspires to be. D J Bentley Editor, Airport Investor Monthly Oldham

David Bentley