Ryanair loses EU fight over €150 million Austrian Airlines aid

Ryanair Holdings Plc lost its European Union court challenge over a €150 million ($163 million) Covid-19 bailout for rival carrier Austrian Airlines AG.

The EU’s top court in Luxembourg said Monday that a 2020 loan by Austrian authorities didn’t violate the bloc’s tough state-aid rulebook, backing an earlier ruling from its lower tribunal. 

EU judges said that Lufthansa AG’s Austrian unit had been hit hard by national coronavirus restrictions and that the airline’s size warranted significant support from the state. 

Ryanair — Europe’s biggest discount airline — has filed more than two dozen challenges over the billions of state aid doled out by EU nations to carriers — winning some cases in the bloc’s lower court over subsidies for the likes of Lufthansa and Air France-KLM. 

The EU recently defeated a top court challenge against regulators’ approval of a €10 billion Spanish bailout fund.  

Ryanair has argued that the subsidies shouldn’t have been waved through by the EU because they distorted competition in the industry.