Complaint to EU Commission

Ryanair Holdings PLC
27 February 2008


                       RYANAIR COMPLAINS TO EU COMMISSION
       AGAINST €400M STATE AID TO AMSTERDAM AIRPORT AND KLM / AIR FRANCE


Ryanair, Europe's favourite airline, today (Wednesday, 27th February 2008),
filed a complaint with the European Commission against State aid of over €400
million per annum to Schiphol Airport and to KLM / Air France. This State aid is
being granted by the Dutch Government in the form of an exemption of transfer
passengers from the so-called 'ECO-TAX' on air travel.

Announcing this complaint, Ryanair's Jim Callaghan said:

        'The Dutch Government's so-called 'ECO-TAX' on air travel is clearly a
        tax scam to fill a €350 million hole in Holland's annual budget.
        Additionally, the Dutch Government is exempting transfer passengers from
        this tax, which amounts to massive subsidy to Schiphol Airport and KLM /
        Air France. While Schiphol is effectively the only Dutch airport
        handling transfer passengers, KLM / Air France accounts for 95% of the
        transfer traffic at the airport. This tax exemption is almost
        exclusively benefiting Schiphol and the KLM / Air France monopoly. The
        Dutch Council of State in September 2007 confirmed that it should have
        been notified to the European Commission as State aid.

        'At a time when the Commission's biased application of the State aid
        rules is increasingly more apparent, we have little hope that the
        Commission will actually investigate this matter. Ryanair has lodged
        complaints regarding massive illegal subsidies to Air France, Lufthansa,
        Alitalia and other flag carriers, yet the Commission has failed to take
        any action whatsoever in these cases (some of which are almost 3 years
        old). Instead the Commission is persecuting tiny regional airports like
        Alghero, Pau, Lubeck, Schonefeld, Aarhus and Tampere, for commercial
        deals with low fares airlines to grow their traffic and promote
        competition.

        'It is time the Commission got its priorities right and started
        promoting competition and consumer choice. We are calling on the
        Commission to stop ignoring blatant State aid to Air France, Alitalia,
        Olympic, Lufthansa, Volare and now KLM, and to finally take on national
        governments who continue to distort competition in Europe's air
        transport market with billions of euro of illegal, back door State aid
        to their flag carrier airlines. The Commission should require the Dutch
        Government to either scrap this tax or to apply it to all passengers,
        i.e., both point-to-point and transfer at Schiphol, and end this €400
        million subsidy to KLM / Air France'.

ENDS.                                     Wednesday, 27th February 2008

For further information: 

Peter Sherrard                    Pauline McAlester 
Ryanair                           Murray Consultants

Tel. [phone]               Tel. [phone]




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