Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
RYANAIR HAS BEEN ordered to repay €2 million to an Austrian airport after authorities found that funding provided to the Irish airline breached EU rules.
In a statement released today the European Commission said that certain airport services and marketing agreements “concluded between the airport operator and airlines Ryanair, HLX and Tuifly gave the latter an undue advantage, which cannot be justified under EU state aid rules”.
Ryanair has said that it intends to appeal the ruling.
HLX was merged with German-based airline Hapagfly in 2007 into the new brand Tuifly as part of German transport company TUI group.
The organisation said that Ryanair, HLX and Tuifly now need to repay the incompatible aid to Austria.
Klagenfurt is a small regional airport located in the state of Carinthia in Austria which is owned by the state of Carinthia and the city of Klagenfurt.
State aid
The Commission said that it assessed arrangements between airport operator KFGB and various airlines. These arrangements typically set the level of airport charges to be paid on routes for a given period, on top of discounts available under the scheme.
The EU Commission said that the arrangements also in provided in certain cases that the airlines would carry out marketing services for KFBG in exchange for remuneration.
The commission said that airport services and marketing agreements concluded with Ryanair, Tuifly and HLX “could not, when they were concluded, have been expected to generate more revenues than additional costs.
“As no profit-driven airport manager would have concluded such loss-making agreements, they amount to state aid to the airlines,” it said.
“Moreover, the agreements simply reduce the operating costs of the airlines, without contributing to common transport objectives.”
€2 million
It added that these agreements “distort competition in the single market in breach of EU state aid rules”.
“The amounts of incompatible state aid are [sic] estimated at around €2 million for Ryanair, €1.1 million for Tuifly and €9.6 million for HLX,” the commission said.
“In order to reduce the distortion of competition created by the illegal subsidies, Ryanair, Tuifly and HLX now have to pay these amounts back to Austria.”
A spokesman for Ryanair said: “We note the Klagenfurt decision, where we stopped flying in 2013. We disagree with the findings and have instructed our lawyers to appeal.”
Written by Paul O’Donoghue and posted on Fora.ie
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
That can’t be right? Only 620 Irish millionaires? That tells me that the vast majority of millionaires are under the radar and therefore paying less than 30% income tax if any!
Yep, just 620 apparently. It was over 1,000 in around 2007/2008 but has dropped dramatically cos of the recession. My possibly dodgy attempt at early-morning maths tells me that that means 0.1% of the Irish population is a millionaire.
Christine,according to this there was 20,400 Irish millionaires in 2007?
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/number-of-irish-millionaires-soars-2230552.html
Yeah, I’d be a tad wary of that figure because it comes from a private company. The 620 figure came from Michael Noonan so it’s Department of Finance figures for the number of millionaires in Ireland which is more reliable.
Lol department of finance having reliable figures, good one
Christine you’ll have to give your self comment of the week for the Noonan & Dept of finance gag!! Classic
lol Stephen Doyle; they’ve probably lost 3.6 of them ;-)
Noonan reliable and figures are not three words that go together in any sentance.
The man tells jokes and like most jokes he makes them up to suit himself.
Des bishop had more chance of getting finance figures right than that clown noonan. Any figures noonan give are all from the Cardiff school of accounting and should be treated as the nonsense they are
I am a billionaire and don’t pay any taxes at all ,pathetic little millionaires , bloody peasants were stealing from my bins again last night ,i let the hounds loose it was great sport to see them running after the peasants up my mile long drive, great exercise for them.
#EXPLOSIVES see the gardai are investing in new explosives, makes a change from investigating i suppose
Very glad that over two hundred Divers have/are travelling to Cork to help recovery of the two remaining fishermen. I hope it works, to give those families some closure on this dreadful tragedy.
#MILLIONAIRES A small thing but… if 42 percent of millionaires pay more than 30 percent tax, then 58 percent pay less than 30 percent tax. So it’s not “Almost half of Ireland’s millionaires pay less than 30 per cent income tax” it’s more than half of Ireland’s millionaires…
There’s a big difference between millionaires in terms of income earned, and millionaires in terms of property owned/inherited. Could this explain the difference?
Ah I think you have a point there Martin. I imagine that the national lottery alone, create at a guess, 50ish millionaires a year and that’s tax free..
I just read that and thought it should be the cover of The Journal…so brillian!!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=219635911459662&set=a.142394652517122.31257.142390589184195&type=1&theater
How many of those 600 plus millionaires actually reside full time in Ireland?
Re the contraband found in prisons can someone tell me why they dont just bring in screening between visitors and prisoners?
have your say