On 23 January 2013, the European Commission announced it had started a formal investigation procedure into state aid granted to airlines flying to Sardinian airports.
On 29 July 2016, the EC concluded that the state aid granted to the airports would not be recovered from the Sardinian airports, as the financial compensation for the air traffic to Sardinia and marketing costs was fully passed on to the airlines. Instead, the airlines (Ryanair, Air Berlin, easyJet and Air Italy) would have to return in total 80.6 million EUR received between 2010 and 2013.
A state measure in the GTA database is assessed solely in terms of the extent to which its implementation affects the extent of discrimination against foreign commercial interests. On this metric, the state aid proposed here is discriminatory.