Ryanair ordered to repay illegal subsidies

egan007

Irish Indo breaking news....

The European Commission has ordered Ryanair to repay millions of euros in illegal discounts it received from Charleroi Airport in Belgium. The commission said the discounts offered exclusively to the Irish airline were in breach of EU competition laws. It said Ryanair should repay around €4.5m of the subsidies. A spokesman for the airline claimed earlier today that the ruling would lead to higher fares and set back budget travel by 20 years. Fianna Fail MEP Gerry Collins has also criticised the EC decision, saying it was against the spirit of enterprise and the promotion of regional development.


Of course it's joe public that will get screwed in the end - i'm willing to bet that no one on the commission has a need for low fare travel.

ednwireland

not before time, ryanair don't seem to realise these are publiclly owned airports and therefore can'y subsidise one airline over another (its anti-competitive) if they gave the same landing charges and marketing deals to all airlines i doubt the eu would have a case. when ryanair was small it wasn't an issue now subsidising one of the main airlines in europe is ryanar should stand on its own two feet if private airlports want to give ryanair money so be it public money shouldn't be used. (ryanair cash surplus currently running at 1.15bn euro so they introduce a 70 cent surchrge to cover those masses of wheelchair passengers) sorry i dont agree with the company ethos, surly md surly unhelpful staff. flew with easy jet last week freindly smiling staff plane took off half an hour early cos everbody was on it hope they survive and manage to make profits and keep airports in business by paying landing charges.

Stark

Ryanair flights take off early if everyone is on board.

egan007

the bottom line for us - the public should be cheap fares - i don't really care if ryanair get cheaper landing costs than easy jet - don't think for a second that easy jet don't have the same deal somewhere else.
Why is everyone so concerned with ryanair's business practices - the only ones that get hurt are other companies. It would be a different scenario if prices were been kept high by ryanair - but it's the complete opposite - love or hate them you have to admire what they have done for european travel.
How many times have you tried to find out if Tesco are getting subsidised for something they sell cheaply - and not bought it.

Villain

The only winners here are the other airline who won't have to drop prices to match ryanair, the public that use Ryanair have lost out, and the economy in the Brussles area of the Charleroi airport has lost out.

Stupid decision and listen to this ****e:

"Meanwhile, European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin told reporters there was no reason for Ryanair to 'penalise' Charleroi by closing its hub there":rolleyes:

MadsL

Ryanair will probabaly still advertise 1 euro faresl, but will 'stealth tax' this up to the level they need to repay these subsidies. Look out for;
1. Increased 'Admin' charges
2. Increased 'service' charges
3. Fees for using a credit card (already a whopping 6euro!) to rise again.
4. They will probably bring in something like fining passengers who are late to the gate after checking-in on time. They will pass this off as being for everyone's convienience...damn I gave them that idea...

Genghis

I was reading that all Charleroi have to do is reduce their landing charges to the level net of subsidy that they charge Ryanair. As Ryanair command 95% of the business anyway, the loss of €14 or so on each non-Ryanair passenger would be negligible when set agains the prospect of losing 95% of the business altogether.

I wonder if they:

a) lowered their standard rate for all airlines; but
b) entered in to some agreement with Ryanair in relation to 'landing slots' or some other mechanism to guarantee future traffic

Would this be considered illegal?