Officials fly the flag – and taxpayers pick up the bill

Date: 01/10/1998

A recent complaint filed by Europe's largest low-cost airline lifts the lid on a fascinating aspect of EU official life.

Ryanair wrote to the European Commission's competition and public procurement units complaining that state-owned Irish carrier Aer Lingus and Swiss-Belgian airline Sabena had sewn up the lucrative business of flying civil servants between Dublin and Brussels.

The Commission ordered the Irish government to put Aer Lingus/Sabena's civil service business - which cost the taxpayer nearly 4 million ecu last year - out to tender. Ryanair applied in April to carry out the contract for 1.3 million ecu, but has heard nothing since.

Other governments tend to be a little more subtle in their treatment of flag-carriers. Many civil servants are given the nod and wink to fly business class with national airlines, and Pope John Paul II never leaves home without Alitalia.

“It seems to me that what's good enough for the travelling public should be good enough for civil servants,” says Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary.