The European Commission has opened a public consultation on draft revised EU rules that govern when governments can support airlines and airports with state aid.
Comments are invited from “all interested parties” until 11 June 2026, with the final guidelines planned for adoption in the first quarter of 2027, the Commission said in a release on Monday.
The draft would replace the current aviation state aid guidelines adopted in 2014, which set conditions for certain public support to be approved under EU rules.
Under the proposals, operating aid — day-to-day support to help cover running costs — would be allowed for airports handling fewer than one million passengers a year, while larger airports would be expected to cover their own operating costs.
Airports with up to 500,000 passengers a year would generally be treated as not viable without public support, and the Commission proposes that operating aid for them could be “block-exempted” under a new General Block Exemption Regulation due to be adopted in 2026 — meaning it could be allowed without a prior notification process in certain cases.
Airports handling between 500,000 and one million passengers a year could receive operating aid for a transitional five-year period under the draft, because many still have significantly lower traffic than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Investment limits and route support
The draft also proposes tightening the threshold for investment aid — funding for infrastructure — so it would be possible for airports with up to three million passengers a year, instead of up to five million under the 2014 rules, and would be subject to “green conditionality” when new capacity is created, the Commission said.
Start-up aid to launch new air routes would no longer be allowed under the revised guidelines, with the Commission saying this support was “very rarely used” and that carriers in the EU’s liberalised air market are expected to bear the risk of opening routes.
The Commission stated it will also revise and simplify how it assesses potentially distortive effects of aid on neighbouring airports, including by examining impacts over a larger geographic area than under current rules.
Separately, the Commission said it will publish a guidance paper alongside the final guidelines to clarify how existing state aid tools for decarbonisation can apply to air transport.
