To date, Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, has launched 16 lawsuits against the European Commission in relation to state aid it has allowed for individual carriers such as Lufthansa, KLM, Austrian Airlines and TAP, as well as national schemes that mainly benefit flag-carrying airlines.
Ryanair feels that what, to all intents and purposes, is financial aid to offset the cost of the COVID-19 pandemic, is discriminatory. However, the top European Court has declared such schemes which have benefited rivals such as SAS and Air France are not discriminatory, so Ryanair has announced that it will be taking the matter to the Court of Justice in the EU.
The court said the French and Swedish schemes were in line with the bloc’s rules. “That aid scheme is appropriate for making good the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and does not constitute discrimination,” the court said, referring to the French scheme. Regarding the Swedish scheme, the court said: “The scheme at issue is presumed to have been adopted in the interest of the European Union.”
Ryanair is challenging the European Commission for clearing a French scheme allowing airlines to defer certain aeronautical taxes and Sweden’s loan guarantee scheme for airlines. In a statement following the ruling on Wednesday this week, Ryanair said it will now refer the matters to the Court of Justice of the EU. “We hope that the Court of Justice will overturn the European Commission’s approvals of the French and Swedish schemes, to give airlines and consumers a glimmer of hope,” the airline said.
A Ryanair spokesperson said that one of the EU’s greatest achievements is the creation of a true single market for air transport, underpinned by the principle of a common EU airline license – one for each airline. “A nationality condition in a State aid scheme is plainly incompatible with the single market,” the spokesperson added. “Ryanair is a truly European airline. We have no rich and powerful “home country” to subsidize us in times of trouble. Nor do we want discriminatory aid. Our instinct in a crisis is to seek efficiencies and cost savings, to offer more routes at lower fares – while remaining Europe’s greenest airline,” the airline added.
