Ryanair to appeal after being ordered to pay back ‘illegal state aid’
Ryanair has instructed its lawyers to appeal against a ruling by the European Commission to make it pay back nearly €9.6 million in what the regulators claim was illegal state aid.
The EC said the funds received from three French airports in airport service agreements and marketing arrangements had given Ryanair and its subsidiaries "an undue economic advantage over competitors".
The agreements with Angouleme, Pau Pyrenees and Nimes airports were in place at various times between 2000 and 2012.
The EC said in each case Ryanair had "paid less than the additional costs linked to its presence in the airport" and therefore had a competitive advantage.
Ryanair’s operations at three German airports were cleared by the inquiry but an investigation continues into Austria’s Klagenfurt airport.
Ryanair said it welcomed the rulings concerning Germany but would be challenging the decision on France.
"Today’s decisions confirm that Ryanair’s airport agreements at Niederrhein Airport comply with the EU state aid rules," said the airline’s director of legal and regulatory affairs Juliusz Komorek.
"Following the closure of this case and the earlier six positive decisions at Aarhus, Bratislava, Charleroi, Marseille, Berlin Schonefeld and Tampere airports, we will immediately appeal the decisions in (the) Pau, Angouleme and Nimes cases, where the EU Commission mistakenly suggested the airports’ agreements with Ryanair did not fully comply with the EU state aid rules."
Dutch carrier Transavia, part of the Air France-KLM group, was also ordered to repay €400,000 in the case of Pau Pyrenees.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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