Ryanair to sue European Commission over state aid

Ryanair said yesterday it would sue the European Commission for not taking action against governments which give what the Irish budget airline believes is illegal state aid to national flag carriers.

Ryanair, Europe's biggest low-cost airline, said it submitted complaints involving Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia and Olympic Airways to the Commission over a year ago.

"These complaints involved hundreds of millions of euro in illegal state aids being granted by the French, German, Italian and Greek governments to subsidise their flag carrier airlines," the company said in a statement.

"Although Ryanair has called on the Commission several times to investigate these claims, the Commission has failed to do so."

Ryanair pointed to what it said was the "twin track" approach of European regulators, accusing them of being "more concerned with protecting inefficient flag carrier airlines and hub airports than... with actually promoting competition".

Discounting of domestic airport fees in France, losses on a new terminal for Munich Airport in Germany and cash injections into Alitalia and Olympic, all amounted to "blatant abuses" of state aid rules, Ryanair said.

By contrast the Dublin-based airline pointed to examples of where it has fallen foul of European competition laws such as when it received state aid at Charleroi airport in Belgium.

Most recently the European Commission last month blocked Ryanair's bid to acquire rival Irish carrier Aer Lingus, marking only the second merger prohibition by the EU executive in four years.