RYANAIR, the Stansted-based airline, has announced it will sue the European Commission in the European Courts for its repeated failure to take action on a number of state aid complaints. Complaints involving Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia and Olympic Ai

RYANAIR, the Stansted-based airline, has announced it will sue the European Commission in the European Courts for its repeated failure to take action on a number of state aid complaints.

Complaints involving Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia and Olympic Airways were submitted more than a year ago but the commission has failed to investigate them despite Ryanair calling for them to do so.

Hundreds of millions of euros have been granted in illegal state aids by French, German, Italian and Greek Governments to subsidise their airlines.

Ryanair's head of regulatory affairs, Jim Callaghan, said: "This is another example of the commission's twin track approach to state aid.

"It appears the commission applies one rule for the high fare carrier airlines and state owned primary airports and a different one for low cost airlines like Ryanair and the numerous regional and secondary airports offering competition and lower fares.