Ryanair has lodged its formal appeal against the European Commission's decision to block the airline's proposed acquisition of Aer Lingus.
However, Aer Lingus was unequivocal this evening that the appeal will fail.
Announcing the appeal to the European Court of First Instance, Ryanair described the Commission's decision to block what it called the merger with Aer Lingus as unlawful and politically motivated.
Just eight days after the former state flag carrier was floated last October, Ryanair announced that it had purchased a large quantity of its shares, and offered to acquire Aer Lingus at E2.80 per share.
However, after an 8 month investagion, the European Commission blocked the transaction on competition grounds.
Ryanair claims that the merger between the two airlines would have reduced fares and eliminated Aer Lingus fuel surcharges saving consumers over E100 million a year.
Ryanair says it's confident the Court of First Instance will overturn the decision because even combined, the two airlines would represent less than 5% of the EU market.
Aer Lingus said that the EU Commission's decision concluded that the proposed Ryanair takeover of Aer Lingus presented greater monopoly problems than any other airline case ever examined by the Commission.
It said that the investigation, which took account of the interests of all relevant parties, particularly those of consumers, confirmed the position of Aer Lingus that competition would suffer if the merger was permitted to take place.
