Ryanair loses EU fight over 150-million-euro Austrian Airlines aid

RYANAIR Holdings lost its European Union court challenge over a 150-million-euro (S$218 million) Covid-19 bailout for rival carrier Austrian Airlines.

The EU’s top court in Luxembourg said on Monday (Jul 29) that a 2020 loan by Austrian authorities did not violate the bloc’s tough state-aid rule book, backing an earlier ruling from its lower tribunal. 

EU judges said that Lufthansa’s Austrian unit had been hit hard by national coronavirus restrictions and that the airline’s size warranted significant support from the state. 

Ryanair – Europe’s biggest discount airline – has filed more than two dozen challenges over the billions of state aid doled out by EU nations to carriers – winning some cases in the bloc’s lower court over subsidies for the likes of Lufthansa and Air France-KLM. 

The EU recently defeated a top court challenge against regulators’ approval of a 10-billion-euro Spanish bailout fund.  

Ryanair has argued that the subsidies should not have been waved through by the EU because they distorted competition in the industry.

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The appeal case is: C-591/21 P, Ryanair and Laudamotion v Commission. BLOOMBERG