The Aviation Regulation Commission last night moved to seek a High Court order compelling Aer Rianta to release information to its office.

The regulator, Mr Bill Prasifka, said his action followed a request to the Stateowned airports company on March 2nd.

This is the first such action by Mr Prasifka, whose office was formally established exactly a month ago.

In a statement, his office said it regretted the action was necessary.

"It had no option bearing in mind the time constraints under which it must operate and the fact that Aer Rianta is in possession of a significant amount of documentation required by the commission to enable it to carry out its function."

Mr Prasifka must determine airport charges by July 27th.

Aer Rianta claims its charges are comparatively low but recent increases have prompted complaints from airlines such as Ryanair.

An Aer Rianta spokesman said: "As far as we're concerned we believe we've given him all the information we believe he's entitled to. We've supplied him with a huge amount of information so obviously there's a difference of opinion."

Mr Prasifka sought Aer Rianta's draft audited financial statements for the year to December 31st.

He also sought copies of the company's general ledger accounts for 1995-2000, detailing each expense category per cost and profit centre.

Detailed breakdowns of income by category for its head office and airports at Dublin, Cork and Shannon were also required and revenue details from the Great Southern Hotel group and international airport operations.

On fees, he sought details of the company's current rates and charges for airports and terminal use.

Mr Prasifka also wanted aggregate fees recovered from each airline using the airports.

In addition, he sought annualised information on historic air traffic volumes for 1995-2000. He sought commercial airline schedules for Aer Rianta's airports and a daily list of domestic and international flights for January, April, July, October and December for 1998-2000. Such information for 2001 was also required, once available.

He also required specific information about the airports. This included plans depicting the location and dimension of all major facilities, master plan studies, performance studies and maintenance and operations manuals.

Details of Aer Rianta's organisational structure were sought, with reference to the staff numbers and their grades at its airports and head office.

Mr Prasifka sought information on Aer Rianta's investment plans, descriptions of outourced services and inventories.