EASYJET TO BUY GB AIRWAYS

Ryanair Holdings PLC
23 January 2008


                       EASYJET CLEARED TO BUY GB AIRWAYS

           ANOTHER APPROVED EU AIRLINE MERGER EXPOSES COMMISSION BIAS

Ryanair, Europe's largest low fares airline today (Wednesday, 23rd January 2008)
again questioned the EU's politically motivated prohibition of the Ryanair / Aer
Lingus merger, following the latest approved European airline merger between
Easyjet and GB Airways.

This Easyjet / GB Airways merger (which was cleared by the UK's Office of Fair
Trading last week) is the latest in a long sequence of approved European airline
mergers (11 since 2002) and exposes the European Commission's double standards
in applying a unique and discriminatory set of rules to block Ryanair's bid for
Aer Lingus, (which combined represents less than 5% of EU air travel) while
approving much larger mergers such as Air France / KLM and Lufthansa / Swiss.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                         APPROVED EU MERGERS                          |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1990    | AF / Air Inter / UTA (100%)                                |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1993    | BA / DanAir (100%)                                         |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1996    | LH / SAS (Co-op ag.)                                       |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2002    | SAS / Spanair ( 74%)                                       |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2002    | LH / Austrian (Co-op ag.)                                  |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2003    | BA / IB / GB Airways (Co-op ag.)                           |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2004    | AF / KLM (100%)                                            |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2005    | LH / Swiss (100%)                                          |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2005    | LH / Eurowings (100%)                                      |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2006    | AB / DBA / LTU (Ger - BKA)                                 |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007    | Flybe / BA Connect (UK - OFT)                              |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007    | EZ / GB Airways (UK - OFT)                                 |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007    | AB / Germania (Ger - BKA)                                  |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007    | AF / KLM - VLM (100%)                                      |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2008    | AF / KLM - Alitalia (100%)                                 |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                        PROHIBITED EU MERGERS                         |
+-------------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007        | Ryanair / Aer Lingus                                   |
+-------------+--------------------------------------------------------+
|             |                                                        |
+-------------+--------------------------------------------------------+

By prohibiting the Ryanair / Aer Lingus merger, the European Commission broke
all airline merger precedents and ignored its own competition rules, in order to
serve the narrow vested interests of the Irish Government. Since the
prohibition, Aer Lingus has increased its fares and raised fuel surcharges,
whereas the pro consumer terms of Ryanair's bid guaranteed a fares reduction and
the removal of Aer Lingus' unfair fuel surcharges, saving EU passengers at least
€100m p.a.

Speaking today, Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary said;

        'This latest approved European airline merger (Easyjet / GB Airways)
        makes the European Commission's decision to block Ryanair's bid for Aer
        Lingus untenable. The continuing wave of European airline consolidation
        clearly demonstrates that the European Commission is applying unfair and
        discriminatory rules to Ryanair, while encouraging all other European
        airlines to merge and consolidate. The prohibition of Ryanair's bid for
        Aer Lingus, which guaranteed over €100m p.a. in passenger savings
        including the removal of Aer Lingus' unjustified fuel surcharges was a
        biased, politically motivated, anti consumer decision.

        'As always with the European Commission, there is one set of rules for
        the flag carriers and a discriminatory set of rules for Ryanair. We
        again call on the European Commission to end this politically corrupt
        bias towards Ryanair by applying to it the same competition and merger
        rules they apply to Europe's flag carrier airlines.

        'The spotlight on the European Commission's bias will intensify further
        when it rubber stamps other mergers such as the ones presently
        contemplated between Air France/KLM and Alitalia and/or Lufthansa/Swiss
        and British Midlands'.


Ends.                                     Wednesday, 23rd January 2008

For Further Information:
Peter Sherrard - Ryanair                  Robert Marshall - Murray Consultants
Tel: [phone]                    Tel: [phone]



                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange