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Ryanair to demand details of IAG's plans for Aer Lingus

An Aer Lingus plane lands at Dublin airport January 27, 2015. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

LONDON (Reuters) - Ryanair (RYA.I) wants details of British Airways owner IAG's (ICAG.L) plans for Aer Lingus (AERL.I), including possible remedies to competition concerns, before it decides whether to accept IAG's offer for its 30 percent stake, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

International Airlines Group's 1.36 billion-euro ($1.5 billion) bid for Ireland's former national flag carrier already has the backing of the Aer Lingus board and Ryanair has also urged the government, which holds a 25 percent stake, to accept the offer.

But it has declined to say whether it will sell its own 30 percent stake.

"Our position is that our stake is available for sale if somebody comes up with the right offer ... not just in terms of price but also in terms of what the investor may wish to do with Aer Lingus in the future," Ryanair's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, told reporters in London.

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"One of the big areas of discussion between ourselves and IAG would be what kind of competition remedies will IAG have to offer up to the European Commission to be able to allow a takeover to take place," he said.

Meanwhile Ryanair is continuing to fight an order made in 2013 by Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that it reduce its stake in Aer Lingus to below 5 percent, making a formal request on Tuesday for the CMA to change its decision.

One of the reasons for the order to sell down the stake, acquired by Ryanair during its own attempt to take over Aer Lingus, was the fact that Ryanair's shareholding might be an obstacle to Aer Lingus merging or being acquired by another airline.

Ryanair said in a statement the fact that the IAG bid for Aer Lingus had secured the support of Aer Lingus's board "fatally undermined" this point. The IAG bid has for now been stalled by political opposition in Ireland.

The CMA said that interested parties have until March 17 to respond to Ryanair's statement.

Aer Lingus and British Airways are currently the only airlines flying scheduled direct flights from London's Heathrow airport to Dublin and regulators may demand another airline compete on the route if IAG buys Aer Lingus.

(Reporting by Sarah Young and Conor Humphries; Editing by Greg Mahlich)