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| - Ryanair on Wednesday lost EU court challenges to massive public bailouts of rival companies such as Air France and SAS designed to help them get through the coronavirus pandemic. The Irish low-cost airline has pursued a legal campaign across Europe to stop bailout deals for the bloc's legacy airlines, arguing the state aid gives them an unfair advantage. Ryanair has long railed against the support given to national champions, and is often backed by the European Commission which requests that companies make concessions -- such as giving up valuable departure slots in busy airports -- in return for state aid. But it lost two cases on Wednesday: one involving a tax delay for Air France and other French airlines, and another that offers loan guarantees for Sweden's airlines, mainly SAS. Ryanair immediately said it would appeal, sending the cases to the EU's highest court, the European Court of Justice. The EU's lower General Court, based in Luxembourg, said in a statement that "this aid scheme is appropriate to remedy the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and does not constitute discrimination," in reference to the French case. On the Swedish case, the court said that the limitation of the loan guarantee scheme to national airlines "is appropriate for achieving the objective of remedying the serious disturbance in Sweden's economy". Ryanair -- Europe's biggest airline in terms of passenger numbers -- is also seeking to undo Germany's massive bailout of Lufthansa in the EU courts as well as schemes in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal. The reverses in court for Ryanair were just a first round and it said counted on Europe's higher court to "give airlines and consumers a glimmer of hope that national politicians obsessed with their flag carriers will be sent back to the drawing board and required to use state aid wisely." This would "assist the recovery of traffic in the post-Covid world instead of bailing out their favoured airline at the expense of fair competition and consumers," the company added. In brief statements, Air France and SAS welcomed Wednesday's decision in their favour. Ryanair estimates the total state aid to airlines approved by Brussels since the beginning of the pandemic at 30 billion euros ($36 billion), including 11 billion to Lufthansa, 10.6 billion to Air France-KLM, 3.5 billion to Alitalia and 1.3 billion to SAS. Based in Ireland but hugely popular in the UK, Ryanair was able to get a £600-million (690-million-euro, $832-million) emergency loan from British public authorities in May last year. arp-aro/rmb/rl
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