French airport under scrutiny for payments to Ryanair

French media report that a preliminary judicial inquiry has started into payments made by Limoges-Bellegarde Airport to Ryanair amid suspicions they breached EU and French rules.

If the inquiry finds that there are irregularities, the Irish airline may have to pay back some or all of the money it received, and leaders of the Chamber of Commerce in Limoges, in charge of running the airport, could face trial.

According to reports on France 3, a low-key investigation has been running for several years, which led to the opening of a formal preliminary investigation.

Both the present chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and his predecessor have been formally interviewed, as well as several members of Ryanair management.

Read more: South-west France airport suspected of paying illegal subsidies to Ryanair

Financial irregularity  

Limoges has a new prosecutor, Emilie Abrantès, in charge of running both investigating judges and prosecutions. Appointed last year, she said at the time that her priorities would include combatting “economic and financial delinquency”.

Her office did not respond to The Connexion when we asked for confirmation that a preliminary inquiry had been formally opened. Ryanair also declined to comment.

Questions over the relationship between Ryanair and the airport first surfaced in a 2018 report published by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Chambre régionale des comptes, part of the Cour des comptes (France's supreme audit institution).

It found that in 2016 Ryanair was responsible for 78% of the €3million annual income of the airport from air-related activity.

This was not enough that year to keep the airport running, and it also received €5.6million in public subsidies, with some of the money going directly to airlines using the airport.

Incentives to airlines, which the report described as “old, irregular incentives”, included a 60.6% discount on landing fees and services when airlines turned aircraft around.

“In 2016, if the airport had billed for the turnaround services it gave Ryanair at the full published amount, it would have received €1,435,322,” the report stated.

“Given the very significant reduction given to Ryanair, the sum received for services rendered was €522,688.

“The services were thus not fully funded by the company, but by the taxpayer or by airport taxes, which is totally forbidden, or by contributions of the syndicates which own the airport, which were never discussed or approved by members.” 

Internet advertising

Another section of the report detailed €1,597,000 which the Limoges Chamber of Commerce agreed to pay Ryanair for marketing, through its subsidiary Air Marketing Service (AMS). This included Limoges featuring on the front page of the Ryanair website for two weeks a year.

AMS told investigators that the internet advertising stimulated passenger numbers to Limoges, attracted businesses such as duty-free shops and boosted the property value of the airport should the owners ever decide to sell it.

Similar agreements are likely to be in place in most of the French airports that Ryanair uses, but their details are usually kept secret.

Since 2018, the importance of Ryanair to Limoges airport has increased – of 266,000 travellers to and from the airport last year, 241,000 travelled with Ryanair.

The preliminary inquiry is the first Ryanair has faced in recent times in France, but it has run into trouble with European Union authorities.

In 2024, it was ordered to repay €14million which the EU judged had been wrongly granted by the airport of Frankfurt-Hahn in Germany, and in 2019 the company was ordered to pay back €8.5million for “marketing” by the airport of Montpellier in France.

Another high-profile spat occurred in 2010 when the then president of Charente department, Michel Boutant, accused the company of “blackmail” for allegedly demanding a €175,000 contribution that was not in the initial contract.

Ryanair, which had been flying to Angoulême airport since 2008, and had already received €1million in contributions from the department, stopped using the airport as a result.

In 2020, it was ordered by a court in Poitiers to pay €512,000 to the department as a result of breaking the contract to use Angouleme airport.

The airport’s runway had previously been lengthened at great expense so that aircraft such as Ryanair’s Boeing 737s could use it easily.

Last year, Ryanair stopped using Bordeaux airport following a row over fees. The airport said passenger numbers had dropped by 13% as a result.

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