Ryanair loses EU court ruling over Finnair Covid bailout

Ryanair Holdings Plc lost a court challenge over a Covid-19 bailout for rival carrier Finnair Oyj after a European Union court said support for the airline didn’t break the bloc’s state-aid rules.

The EU’s top court upheld a lower court’s ruling was right in finding that the €600 million ($648 million) Finnish aid wasn’t unfair treatment.

Ryanair — Europe’s biggest discount airline — has filed more than two dozen challenges over the billions of state aid doled out by nations to carriers including Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Air France-KLM. The firm argued that the measures shouldn’t have been waved through by the EU because they distorted competition in the industry.

“Ryanair has not put forward any argument capable of demonstrating that the General Court distorted the facts,” according to the European Court of Justice decision.

Despite the loss against Finnair, the Irish carrier has had some success in its attempts to challenge the billions dolled out in financial support across the bloc. 

In February, Ryanair won a EU court challenge against approval of a €3.4 billion state aid package for Air France-KLM.

Ryanair didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is: T-388/20, Ryanair v Commission (Finnair I; COVID-19).