CurrentAccount: Michael O'Leary will know by this evening whether seven senior pilots at Ryanair will accept the airline's terms for retraining on Boeing 737-800 aircraft or risk losing their jobs when a new fleet comes on stream in the autumn.
The pilots' intentions were unclear last night, but only days after the company reported a 21 per cent rise in quarterly profits to €64.4 million, the spat shows no sign of abating.
Almost all the airline's Dublin-based pilots claim they have been victimised and 64 of them have filed a High Court writ, accusing the company of breaching their constitutional rights by refusing to engage in collective bargaining through a trade union.
Bad as that sounds, the confrontation was not mentioned in an upbeat report this week by analysts at Citigroup Smith Barney. While the main risk was the danger of further terrorist attacks on London, Smith Barney noted that its fuel costs are well-hedged this winter in the face of a relentless upward spiral in oil prices.
"We would expect flag carrier competitors to scale back capacity growth and many smaller low-fare carriers to go out of business this winter. Ryanair should emerge relatively stronger."
We'll soon see what the pilots say to that. With many of the major airlines not taking on cadet pilots since the September 11th attacks in 2001, the Ryanair crew believe Mr O'Leary has no option but to deal with them because of a worldwide shortage of experienced pilots. The flipside of that argument is that any airline closures will increase the supply of pilots.
Current Account is betting on a resolution, but not today. Mr O'Leary's pugnacious style and his pilots' anger are such that any move to cease hostilities is unlikely before the deadline for the introduction of new aircraft in the autumn.
FX Buckley accounts fattened by hotel asset
Things seem to be going tolerably well for FX Buckley, the butchers cum restaurant concern run by the eponymous family. Accounts for FX Buckley (Products) group lodged with the Companies' Office make for mixed reading. Operating profits slipped from €102,579 to €17,573 last year.
The main reason being a big jump in administrative expenses from €405,697 to €522,989, helped by the increase in directors' remuneration from €47,209 to €141,463.
The balance sheet however, remains healthy, with net assets boosted from €1.7 million to €2.18 million, thanks to €465,000 capital contribution from Berne Hotels Ltd, the subsidiary that used to own the Killarney Court Hotel.
The hotel business was sold in 2003 at a profit of €4.8 million. Some €4.5 million of this was distributed in that year to group companies, including the parent Undercliffe Holdings.
Banking on criticism
It was hardly surprising to see the big banks come out against the financial regulator's tough new framework to test the "fitness and probity" of senior mangers and directors in the sector.
The banks were also joined by a host of other institutions such as credit unions and money lenders in protest against a test, which would probe the integrity and competence of managers.
Most criticised the bureaucratic nature of the framework and AIB chairman, Dermot Gleeson, warned of the "chilling" effect it would have on law abiding candidates who would prefer to maintain their privacy.
The critics may have a point but their case will not be strengthened by AIB's trenchant opposition to the measures.
After all, this is the bank that only recently admitted that it had been overcharging its customers for more than a decade.
It is also the bank at which five executives benefited from Faldor, a British Virgin Islands-registered firm, which broke tax laws and had inappropriate dealings with AIB's investment management subsidiary.
To quote Shakespeare, the man doth protest too much, methinks.
Quinlan's legal ease
Derek Quinlan, the favourite money man of Ireland's super-rich, has formed a new company. Quinlan Private Secretarial Services Ltd was established in June, according to the Companies' Office. Its principal object is legal activities. Seems to rule out all the good stuff like gun running, organising coups in small African nations and plutonium smuggling.
