Business Opinion: Martin Cullen is wobbling. It started some time on Thursday shortly after he rewarded a threat of strike action from the Aer Lingus unions with that most glorious of prizes, a meeting with the minister.

The union representatives left the meeting in question in fine fettle apparently convinced that the clock had stopped on the Aer Lingus sale and their counter proposal of state investment via a new state holding company was back on the table. ...

Spin control was quickly activated at the Department of Transport, with the minister claiming that all he has agreed to do is bring the unions concerns to the attention of the cabinet, but that the decision of last May to sell a majority shareholding in Aer Lingus remained intact.

The minister wobbled. It may have been brief, but it was a wobble. So, where does the wobbling leave the on again, off again flotation of the national airline? Some way away from a debut on the market this June or July one fears.

The real pity is that it looks as though the wobbling is starting just as the main plank of the union's case against the sale of the airline is collapsing.

They have argued - with justification - that the issue of the airline's potential pension deficit must be resolved before any talks about change of ownership can be seriously entered into. The Government has moved to counter this by saying that €200 million of the flotation proceeds would be earmarked for sorting out the pension problem.

The unions recently received an update on the situation from their advisers, Farrell Grant Sparks and Paul Sweeney & Associates.

The advisers concluded that a flotation - or a "proposed transaction" to be precise - "may create the opportunity for a once-off improvement in the pension position".

They also go on to say "we need to agree to engage with management in considering a proposed transaction in the context of its impact on the pension position".

Thus with one swipe of the Powerpoint presentation the flotation is transformed from the scourge of the Aer Lingus workers into their salvation.

Why then is Cullen starting to wobble? Maybe it's pure terror at the prospect of a strike at Aer Lingus being laid at his door. Maybe it was a classic fear wobble.

Or maybe it was a tactical wobble. With the the ground disappearing from under their feet - in terms of the pension issue - the unions may be getting ready to finally cut the deal that everybody expects them to.

Was last Thursday's wobble part of some elaborately choreographed process by which the unions' climb down can be presented as some sort of victory? Perhaps, but it's a risky strategy for a minister as unsure on his feet as Cullen.

The final alternative is the Machiavellian wobble. It is well known that the Taoiseach is very cool indeed on the whole flotation business. The massed ranks of the airline's management, various advisers and the civil service appear to have convinced him of the financial logic of the sale, but his political calculus seems to come up with another answer.

Maybe Thursday's wobble is the first step in a process that will see the whole issue postponed until the autumn?

One suspects that the various advisers to the company, the Government, the unions and the rest of the great Aer Lingus flying circus can safely book some holidays in June.