After the week management and staff of Aer Lingus have been through, it would be understandable if some employees of the former state airline were casting envious glances at other better-resourced or better-protected airlines based in or near Dublin airport.

There is Ryanair, with its colossal cash reserves of €2.2bn and plans to order hundreds of additional Boeing 737-800s over the next few years as it moves towards its historic target of flying 70 million passengers a year around Europe.

Jealous looks from Aer Lingus staffers might also be directed towards offices at the Swords Business Park, where CityJet, the European regional carrier, runs its operations. Unlike Dermot Mannion's Aer Lingus, CityJet is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air France-KLM, Europe's biggest airline. This connection means that, no matter how severe the current economic slump becomes, no matter how high jet fuel prices spike and no matter how low passenger volumes dip, CityJet has a strong likelihood of surviving the crisis.

Obviously no airline has the luxury of being that certain of its prospects, but CityJet comes relatively close, one suspects.

CityJet's link with Air France-KLM makes even the toughest challenge – buying fuel – entirely manageable. Its larger parent buys the kerosene centrally for all its subsidiaries, explains Geoffrey O'Byrne White, a former pilot with the Irish air corps.

"When the fuel crisis hit, Air France was one of the best hedged of all the airlines. They didn't suffer the calamities other airlines had to suffer during the summer period," he says.

O'Byrne-White, who tends to avoid the excitable oratory of other airline chiefs, has a rather jaundiced view of public anger about high oil prices anyway.

"If you see a whole load of airlines going out of business, routes being cut, tourism falling off, companies going bust, but the M50 is still chock-a-block with cars, the message I take from that is that cars is where you need to be concentrating. I don't see too much evidence yet of people abandoning their cars."

Regional carriers use less fuel than larger airlines anyway and generally they get less press, but O'Byrne-White says competition among them is just as fierce, with 80 airlines competing across Europe in this part of the market.

The competition is often for those passengers who pay the highest fares – corporate travellers. Business traffic is integral to most CityJet routes and that is where the airline's revenues are most vulnerable.

"No doubt there is going to be an adverse effect there. How to quantify it is hard to tell. On the other hand, we don't carry a lot of price-sensitive leisure passengers, certainly less than others and they are going to disappear for sure. Whereas if you have to do business, you have to do business. If you have a client to meet, you have a client to meet," says O'Byrne-White.

He admits a lot of executives are now prepared to trade down – often on the instructions of their travel department – to Ryanair or EasyJet, but he doesn't accept this is a particular problem for CityJet on routes such as Dublin-London City.

"They can trade down within our cabin. People who used to buy business class fully flexible tickets might accept a class of ticket where they are not business class, but they retain a certain amount of flexibility but at a lower price."

Some travel departments will simply ban business class travel, he says, and passengers will travel economy instead. Pricing is one thing, but capacity has to be filled, he says: "It's survival of the fittest."

Headquartered in Dublin, CityJet is so niche that O'Byrne-White says there is little chance of the airline departing from Ireland or being edged out within the Air France-KLM structure.

"We have a strategy. We have a particular type of aircraft, we have them all identical. We have a simulator for that aircraft – it's here in Dublin. We have a hangar for that aircraft and that is here in Dublin, and when you look at all these things, you think these guys are here for the long term. Our shareholders have been really great to us, allowing us to re-invest," he says.

But why Ireland at all, I ask. He says founder Pat Byrne set up an airline with a "very good ethos" and on top of that Air France didn't have the type of aircraft or expertise CityJet has built up.

He describes the airline as a "high-frequency shuttle service" that draws heavily on the hub of Charles de Gaulle, Paris. Among the routes now offered is Shannon-Charles de Gaulle. CityJet came into Shannon after Aer Lingus controversially decamped to Belfast.

"It's performing reasonably well," says O'Byrne-White. "The people in Shannon just needed a hub connection. That's key. Once you have that, no matter what happens, you can fly anywhere."

CityJet operates with 27 Avro RJ-85 aircraft, which have four engines and 96 seats. They are designed to operate out of city airports. The aircraft come in a two-class configuration of economy and business class. About 20% of its passengers originate in Ireland. CityJet takes the "P&L risk" on the routes, says O'Byrne-White.

"We are not a wet lease operator. We decide whether we want to continue a franchise route or not. We are responsible for the profitability of the routes," he says.

Dublin remains key, but not necessarily an expanded Dublin airport, where O'Byrne-White has strong views on the planned Terminal 2. "We're sailing in very different waters now than we were a few months ago," he suggests.

He is chairman of the Dublin airport airlines Capex committee, formed earlier this year, and through that work is familiar with the project. He says the Dublin Airport Authority is allowed a return on its capital investment, so the bigger the investment, the bigger the return it makes.

"Their incentive all the time is spend, spend, spend, and then send me the bill, send the airlines the bill. We're saying no, no," he says. "I think Terminal 2 probably should be stopped, postponed. To build the thing and then put the charges onto the airlines in the commercial environment that we already have, it's going to choke off the flow of people coming in for business and tourism. It's a disaster."

He claims he has not yet seen a business plan for the new terminal, only a building plan.

"The plans for the terminal were drawn up around the same time as the Aer Lingus flotation was happening," he says. "Once you pour concrete, it stays poured and the cost stays with you."

Cirriculum Vitae

Geoffrey O'Byrne-White

Age: 53

Career: Having started his career as a pilot with the Irish air corps, O'Byrne -White advanced to the top position of head of operations for the government air transport service in 1985. From there, he moved to Parc Group, becoming a director of Parc Aviation and establishing the maintenance and consultancy divisions before moving to his current position as CEO of CityJet.

Hobbies: A keen sportsman and patron of the arts, he spends his spare time sailing around the Irish coastline.