Ryanair has lost its appeals against Italy's COVID-19 state aid to airlines, after the EU General Court ruled against the low-cost carrier in challenges brought over support Rome extended to airlines during the pandemic.

The Luxembourg-based General Court, the EU's first-instance tribunal for state aid disputes, dismissed Ryanair's appeals, handing a win to the airlines that received Italian pandemic assistance and to the European Commission framework that permitted it.

Ryanair, Europe's largest low-cost carrier, has built a reputation as the bloc's most persistent litigant against national airline bailouts. The Irish company has repeatedly argued that state support schemes favouring flag carriers distort the single aviation market and advantage incumbent rivals over independent carriers.

What does the ruling mean?

The judgment closes, at first-instance level, Ryanair's challenges to the Italian aid package. Unless Ryanair appeals to the Court of Justice of the European Union — the EU's highest court — on a point of law, the decision stands and the Italian support measures remain lawful under EU state aid rules.

For practitioners, the ruling is another data point confirming that pandemic-era aid schemes approved by the European Commission under its temporary state aid framework can survive annulment actions brought by competitor airlines. Ryanair has filed a long series of such challenges across multiple member states, and courts have now rejected most of them.

Practical consequences

The decision confirms the difficulty competitors face when challenging crisis aid schemes that the Commission has approved. Claimants must show the Commission manifestly erred in approving the measures, a high threshold that Ryanair has struggled to meet across its litigation campaign.

• The EU General Court dismissed Ryanair's appeals against Italy's COVID-19 airline aid.
• The case forms part of Ryanair's broader litigation campaign against EU member-state airline bailouts.
• An appeal on points of law to the Court of Justice remains possible within the standard two-month window.

The ruling leaves the Italian aid measures intact and closes another chapter in the long-running legal fight over pandemic-era support for Europe's airlines.

Note: This report is based on the headline of the Reuters dispatch; the full text of the judgments, including case numbers and operative language, was not available at the time of publication.