Aer Lingus and Ryanair brace for tax ruling

The European Court of Justice will rule on Thursday over whether Aer Lingus and Ryanair are liable to pay a multimillion-euro tax bill over the air travel tax which was scrapped by the Government in 2013. The ruling is on separate but similar cases brought by the airlines against the European Commission over its finding in 2012 that a lower tax rate for short-haul flights was unfair. The Commission ordered Ireland to recover the difference between the two taxes — €8 per passenger — from the airlines after it determined in July 2012 that the two-tier tax did amount to