According to the European Court of Justice, it is unjustified that the airline KLM has received 3.4 billion euros in corona support from the government. The European Commission had approved these loans in 2020, but the European court states Wednesday that that shouldn't have happened. Dutch corona support should only have gone to KLM, the Dutch branch of the Air France-KLM group. The European Commission stated that this was the case, but according to the judge, Air France could also “at least indirectly benefit” from the state aid granted.
The lawsuit was filed by Ryanair, which sued several national airlines. According to Ryanair, it is unfair competition that airlines partly owned by governments were able to receive state aid during the corona period, while European airlines such as Ryanair did not receive it.
In 2021, the European Court also annulled the European Commission's decision, because the Commission had not sufficiently substantiated who received the money. Later that year, the European Commission again decided that the corona aid to Air France-KLM was valid. Now the European Court once again finds that the Commission 'committed an error' when approving the aid. The approval of French government aid to Air France was also reversed by the European Court at the end of last year.
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