Ryanair Chief Threatens Legal Action Over Flybe Bailout

Ryanair is demanding that the same 'subsidies' given to Flybe are extended to its UK rivals


In a strongly-worded letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid, Ryanair said the air passenger duty ‘holiday’ given to Flybe must be given to Ryanair, easyJet and British Airways, or it will take legal action over a breach of competition law and state aid rules.

Ryanair’s statement claimed the Flybe business model is ‘neither profitable nor viable and has lurched from failure to failure repeatedly over the last 20 years’.

It also said that while the Flybe business model is unsustainable, it is owned by billionaires ‘including Richard Branson, Delta Airlines and Cyrus Capital’, who ‘do not need a Government subsidy to prop up their failed airline investments’.

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