RYANAIR SUES EUROPEAN COMMISSION (FOR THE FIFTH TIME)

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Ryanair News
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News Release
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30.11.07
RYANAIR SUES EUROPEAN COMMISSION (FOR THE FIFTH TIME) FOR ITS FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE ILLEGAL STATE AID OF OVER €2 BILLION TO ALITALIA

Ryanair, Europe’s favourite low fares airline, today (Fri, 30 Nov) lodged its fifth case in recent weeks in the European Court of First Instance against the European Commission’s repeated failure to investigate illegal State aid to national flag carrier airlines. The previous four cases include:

State aid of over €1bn to Air France in the form of reduced domestic airport charges;
State aid of over €100m to Lufthansa through its use of the loss-making Terminal 2 at Munich Airport;
State aid of over €500m to the loss making Olympic Airways in Greece;
State aid of over €20m to Alitalia’s subsidiary, Volare, through a write-off in airport debts.


This latest (fifth) case involves the Commission’s failure to act on Ryanair’s complaint about continuing illegal State aid to Alitalia. The aid consisted of several measures, including a split-up of the company’s assets and operations and uneven allocation of the debt, resulting in a €1.7 billion debt write-off for Alitalia. Ryanair called on the Commission to investigate this blatant abuse of EU competition rules over 2 years ago, but the Commission has so far failed to do so.

Announcing the launch of these proceedings Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s CEO, said:

“The ongoing State aid to Alitalia is a perfect example of the Commission’s bias towards inefficient national airlines. Alitalia is now losing in excess of €400 million per annum and the Italian government continues to illegally bail it out. Even dogs in the streets of Brussels know that Alitalia is receiving illegal State aid, yet DG TREN continues to ignore this blatant State aid, preferring instead to prosecute tiny regional airports like Pau in the south of France.

Following the Commission’s failure to investigate this case, we are left with no alternative – yet again – but to challenge this further inaction in the European courts. We are calling on the Commission to end its discriminatory and biased approach to State aid enforcement, to start promoting competition and consumer choice, and to put an end to this scandal of unlawful State aid to flag carrier airlines.”