The airlines Ryanair and Tuifly received subsidies at Klagenfurt Airport many years ago. These were declared unlawful by the EU Commission in 2016 and the reversal was ordered. On the other hand, the two carriers unsuccessfully went to court of the European Union.

The matter was a long time ago, because under the FPÖ / BZÖ state government, the philosophy of attracting new carriers with high subsidies was pursued in Klagenfurt. Among other things, they got Ryanair and Tuifly. The latter airline sold its Cityshuttle business to Air Berlin, so that at least in theory it was also involved.

At the time, Air Berlin justified its withdrawal from Carinthia boldly by stating that they wanted to continue to have money to fly to Klagenfurt at all. You didn't get that and the connections that were still being established by Tuifly have been deleted without replacement. It was similar with Ryanair, which should pay the regular fees after the expiry of the contracts. A spokeswoman justified the withdrawal from Carinthia, which was carried out with a very short lead time, with "an outrageous fee increase".

The appeal was unsuccessful for both Tuifly and Ryanair, each of whom sued against the decision of the EU Commission. The court of the European Union confirmed the decision on Wednesday and demanded that Austria and the state of Carinthia have to repay the aid that had been declared unlawful. At Air Berlin the situation is a little different, because there will not be much to get there due to the insufficient masses reported to the bankruptcy court.

Theoretically, Tuifly and Ryanair still have the option to fight the judicial decision before the European Court of Justice. The chances of success are probably rather low due to comparable cases in which decisions were made against the airlines or aid providers. The ECJ takes a consistent and tough line here.

Tuifly is about a total of 10,5 million euros, which the state of Carinthia is supposed to reclaim, and Ryanair around two million euros. The significantly different sums can also be explained by the fact that the Tuifly offer from Klagenfurt was significantly larger than that of the competitor. Due to the pending appeal period, the two judgments of the General Court of the European Union are not yet final.