Ryanair has lost a High Court challenge to the approval by the Commission for Aviation Regulation of the Dublin Airport Authority's proposed charges for rental of check-in desks at Dublin airport.
Ryanair had claimed the proposed charges - €64,751 per check-in desk and including the costs of a computerised check-in service known as Cute (Common User Terminal Equipment) - were excessive and that the decision to approve them, made by the commission in December 2004, was arbitrary and unreasonable.
Because it provides its own ground-handling services, does not use Cute and is a "self-handler" within the provisions of the European Communities Groundhandling Regulations, Ryanair claimed it should not have to pay for the costs of providing Cute.
The commission had "unquestioningly" accepted the DAA position that there would be no reduction of the rental figure by extracting the costs of Cute and this rendered the charges approval fundamentally flawed, the airline claimed.
It alleged the charges approval breached the Competition Act here and EU competition law.
In his reserved judgment, Mr Justice John Quirke said the DAA had the required competence and expertise to decide upon the criteria to be applied to the fixing of fees for access to installations at Dublin airport.
Its principal obligations were to ensure the criteria it applied were consistent with the objectives of the relevant EU directive, relevant to the service, objective, transparent and non-discriminatory.
It was "unsurprising", he said, that the costs of providing the service should be the most relevant factor in the calculation of the fees to be charged. Examination of the documents in the case showed the commission was conscious of the objectives of the directive and of the regulations in considering the issue of costs and how those were to be calculated.
Another factor in the commission's decision was the need to establish and to take into account the concerns of other airport- users, he said. The judge found Ryanair had adduced no evidence suggesting the commission applied criteria irrelevant to its deliberations and to the objectives of the directive and the regulations. Nor was it necessary for the commission to "justify" its decision by providing detailed written explanations related to its decision.
It was unnecessary for the commission, in making its decision, to publish a detailed breakdown of every aspect of its financial operations, the judge added. Ryanair had failed to prove the decision was made unlawfully and this, and all the other claims by the airline, must be dismissed, he ruled.