HOW TO SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ROUTES 157 were challenged by the airlines concerned before the General Court of the EU that in several judgments of 13 December 2018, confirmed the Commission’s approach towards those marketing services contracts. In the Pau Airport judgment, the General Court held that: “167. In the present case, the Commission held in the contested decision that each marketing services agreement was indissociable from the underlying airport services agreement and that it was therefore appropriate, for each marketing services agreement, to analyse that agreement and the airport services agreement signed at the same time as a single measure (recitals 286 to 313 of the contested decision). In order to reach that conclusion, it found, inter alia, in recitals 289 and 290 of the contested decision, that all the marketing services agreements and the corresponding airport services agreements had been signed at virtually the same time and by the same parties, forming a single economic entity. Furthermore, the Commission mentioned, in recitals 291 to 313 of the contested decision, a number of other elements which revealed additional and close links between the marketing services agreements and the airport services agreements signed at the same time. Thus, after an examination of the content of the various marketing services agreements, the Commission found, in recital 305 of the contested decision, that the marketing services were, in terms of both their duration and their nature, closely linked to the air transport services offered by Ryanair and covered by the airport services agreements. In that regard, the Commission noted that the marketing services agreements indicated that they were rooted in Ryanair’s commitment to operate the air transport services in question. The Commission also noted that, far from being designed to generally and equally increase travel to Pau and its region by tourists and business travellers, the marketing services specifically targeted those persons likely to use the Ryanair transport services, and therefore had the primary objective of promoting those services. In addition, the Commission found, in recital 306 of the contested decision, that the facts presented above indicated that, in the absence of the routes in question, and therefore the associated airport services agreements, the marketing services agreements would not have been signed. Finally, the Commission inferred from the statements of the French authorities that the conclusion of all the airport services agreements seemed to have been dependent upon the conclusion of the marketing services agreements (see recitals 309 to 311 of the contested decision). 168. The applicants have failed to call that analysis into question. The Commission did not rely solely on the fact that each marketing services agreement
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