Link: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-05/cp200059en.pdf

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 General Court of the European Union

PRESS RELEASE No 59/20 Luxembourg, 13 May 2020
Judgments in Case T-607/17

Volotea v Commission, T-716/17 Germanwings v Commission, and T-8/18 easyJet v Commission 
 
The General Court dismisses the actions against the Commission decision declaring illegal the aid from Italy to several airlines serving Sardinia
The operators of the Sardinian airports were not the beneficiaries of the aid but merely intermediaries between the Autonomous Region and the airlines, which must therefore reimburse it the public aid
By the judgments easyJet v Commission (T-8/18), Volotea v Commission (T-607/17) and Germanwings v Commission (T-716/17), delivered on 13 May 2020, the General Court dismissed the actions brought by the airlines easyJet, Volotea and Germanwings (‘the airlines’) seeking the annulment of the decision of the European Commission of 29 July 2016 which declared partly incompatible with the internal market the aid granted by Italy to several European airlines, including the three at issue, serving Sardinia.1
According to that decision, the aid scheme instituted, in Italy, by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia (‘the Region’) for the development of air transport constituted State aid granted not to the operators of the main Sardinian airports (Alghero, Cagliari-Elmas and Olbia), but to the airlines concerned.
In 2010, a regional law,2 notified by Italy to the Commission pursuant to Article 108(3) TFEU, authorised the financing of the island's airports with a view to the development of air transport, inter alia through the de-seasonalisation of air routes to and from Sardinia. That regional law was implemented by a series of measures adopted by the executive of the Region (the regional law and the adopted measures are hereinafter referred to together as the ‘measures at issue’).