The airline could have potentially raised the money elsewhere, even if not on such favourable terms, or else it could have sold off assets to keep itself afloat instead. This week, the EU’s General Court agreed that the German government’s €6bn (£5bn) bailout of Lufthansa, which included taking a 20pc stake in the airline, violated its own rules, and that the Commission should not have approved it.

The EU is very keen on imposing rules on everyone else, but, funnily enough, it is not usually so keen on following them itself.Īfter many of its endless fines on the American tech giants were eventually ruled illegal in its own courts, it now turns out that its decision to approve state aid to the airlines during the Covid pandemic broke its own rules as well. They are not about to let anything stand in the way of that now – and certainly not an irritating budget airline based in Ireland. In reality, Germany and France have set their sights on a return to a state-dominated industry. The days of free competition and lower fares for travellers are in the past. France and Germany have both taken back effective control of their flag-carrier airlines, and will soon be adding control of Italy’s ITA to their combinations as well.

The trouble is, Ryanair is kidding itself if it expects the drift back towards state control is going to be reversed any time soon, and certainly not by anything as toothless as the European courts. Heck, who knows, perhaps even Britain’s IAG, owner of British Airways, Iberia and easyJet, might get a fairer crack at the markets across the rest of the Continent.

In the wake of that, you might be tempted to imagine that the trend towards more state control in the European airline industry might finally be reversed. Last week, it won a victory against the established giants of the aviation industry when the European Court of Justice ruled that the billions offered by the German government to Lufthansa during the height of the Covid pandemic were effectively illegal. It was at least a victory of sorts for Ryanair, and for its pugnacious boss Michael O’Leary.

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