RYANAIR would have to give up landing slots at Dublin, Stansted and Heathrow if it succeeds in taking a controlling stake in Aer Lingus, according to City analysts.

Industry watchers believe that the European Commission will examine the deal by looking at the cities that both airlines fly to, which is a much larger overlap than the destination airports.

According to ABN Amro, a combined airline would have 78 per cent of the UK-Ireland market, 77 per cent of the Ireland-France market, 81 per cent of Ireland-Spain routes and 82 per cent of Ireland-Germany.

An economist with experience of working on airline mergers in the European Commission’s competition directorate said that there was only a “very slim” chance of the merger succeeding.

“The number of slots that Ryanair would have to give up would be huge. They compete on 17 routes but the Commission would want to have confidence that another market entrant could run up to six services a day on some of those routes — that’s a lot of slots to give up and a lot of help to give a competitor,” he said.

In the case of Air France- KLM, the combined airline was forced to give up slots on nine routes. The Commission’s main concern was the lack of competition on the Paris-Amsterdam route, but it was partly mollified by the availability of a fast train service between the two cities, which offered customers an alternative.

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