Ryanair loses final appeal against Austrian Airlines loan

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Ryanair lost its final fight against a state loan made to Austrian Airlines as Europe's top court on Monday sided with the EU competition authorities who approved it.

The 150-million-euro ($163 million) subordinated loan was granted to Lufthansa's Austrian unit in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Europe's biggest budget airline has launched more than 20 lawsuits against the European Commission for approving billions of euros in state aid to airlines during the pandemic saying the support gave those carriers an unfair advantage.

A lower tribunal in 2021 upheld the EU competition enforcer's 2020 decision, prompting Ryanair to appeal to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

CJEU judges dismissed the appeal.

"The Court of Justice confirms the lawfulness of the subordinated loan of 150 million euros granted by Austria to Austrian Airlines in the summer of 2020," judges at the Luxembourg-based Court said.

"A member state may, for objective reasons, reserve to a single undertaking aid that is intended to make good the damage caused by an exceptional occurrence," they said.

The ruling is final and cannot be appealed. Ryanair has won its challenges against state aid granted to Lufthansa, Condor, KLM, Air France and TAP but lost its challenges against that for SAS and Finnair.

The case is C-591/21 P Ryanair and Laudamotion v Commission.

($1 = 0.9225 euros)

(This story has been corrected to show Ryanair won (not lost) its challenge against Air France state aid, in paragraph 8)

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Jason Neely)