Response to EU Investigation

Ryanair Holdings PLC
10 July 2007



                RYANAIR RESPONDS TO EU COMMISSION INVESTIGATION

               INTO BERLIN, DORTMUND, LUBECK AND TAMPERE AIRPORTS

Ryanair, Europe's largest low fares airline today (Tuesday, 10th July 2007)
condemned the European Commission ,which announced investigations into Easyjet's
cost base at Berlin and Dortmund airports, and Ryanair's costs base at Lubeck
and Tampere airports, while at the same time continuing to ignore the blatant
State Aid being doled out to Europe's largest flag carriers including Air
France, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Olympic.

Ryanair pointed to the European Commission's repeated failure to investigate
massive State Aid as follows:

 1. •Air France enjoys a 50% discount on airport charges for domestic routes at
     French airports which amounts to unlawful State Aid of over €1bn over the
     last 7 years.

 2. •Lufthansa's exclusive use of the second terminal at Munich Airport which
     caused the State owned Munich Airport to lose over €50m last year. These
     enormous losses being made by the State owned airport for the sole and
     exclusive benefit of Lufthansa prove conclusively that Lufthansa is not
     paying the full charges associated with the second terminal at Munich.

 3. •The European Commission has repeatedly ignored the billions of euro of State
     aid which are handed annually to Alitalia in the form of rescue and recovery
    plans.

 4. •The European Commission continues to ignore the annual bail out of the loss
     making Olympic Airlines by the Greek Government.

Commenting today Ryanair's Spokesman, Peter Sherrard said:

    'Today's announcement proves that the European Commission has a biased
    approach to State Aid investigations. It continues to ignore €billions of
    State Aid to flag carrier airlines in the form of discounted domestic
    charges, exclusive use of terminal facilities and annual bail outs to
    Alitalia and Olympic Airlines, yet at the same time the Commission is
    wasting time and resources investigating the cost base of small secondary
    airports such as Lubeck and Tampere, which without Ryanair would have no
    traffic at all, or the main airports of secondary cities such as Berlin and
    Dortmund, which would have far smaller traffic numbers were it not for the
    services provided by Easyjet.

    'This latest development is further proof that this European Commission has
    given up on deregulating the European Air Travel market, and is intent on
    re-regulating that market at every hands turn. At a time when many of
    Europe's flag carrier airlines are raising fares and levying fuel
    surcharges, Ryanair calls on the Commission to launch investigations of
    these massive State Aid subventions to Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia and
    Olympic Airlines, instead of wasting time investigating the affairs of
    smaller secondary regional airports who are and should be free to continue
    to discount their charges in order to win new business from low fare
    airlines.

    'What's next from this European Commission? Perhaps they will investigate
    McDonalds for negotiating discounts with beef and cheese suppliers? Perhaps
    they will investigate Ikea for negotiating volume discounts with furniture
    suppliers? Who knows perhaps they will investigate Tesco for using its
    purchasing power to negotiate supplier discounts on behalf of its customers.

    'Low fares airlines negotiate substantial discounts over the high published
    charges at many airports in secondary cities and secondary airports,
    precisely because those airports wish to develop new routes, traffic and
    business. This development has created competition to the high fare flag
    carrier airlines who are using their political power and influence to send
    the European Commission off on wild goose chases, whilst ignoring the real
    State Aid scandals which are the massive subventions which continue to be
    given annually to flag carrier airlines like Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia
    and Olympic.

    'This Commission is not interested in competition, it simply wants to
    protect the flag carrier airlines and penalise the low fares airlines who
    are negotiating discounts at secondary airports and passing on those
    discounts to the travelling public in the form of lower fares.

    'It is noteworthy that this latest investigation comes just two weeks after
    the EU Commission blocked Ryanair's takeover of Aer Lingus, when it had
    previously rubber stamped the much larger Air France takeover of KLM and the
    Lufthansa takeover of Swiss and Austrian. Clearly this Commission applies
    one rule to the flag carrier airlines and an entirely different rule to the
    low fares airlines. Sadly this Commission cannot be trusted to advance the
    cause of consumers, it is more interested in protecting the narrow self
    interest of flag carrier airlines'.

Ends. Tuesday, 10th July 2007

For further information

please contact: 

Peter Sherrard               Pauline McAlester

Ryanair Ltd                  Murray Consultants

Tel. [phone]           Tel. [phone]



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