166 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM effect condition. Prior notification by the Member State to the Commission is required. This category of aid has not been successful. The decisions of the Commission are limited in that respect to a few national schemes (France, UK, Lithuania) and an isolated case relating to the Canaries Islands. This lack of success is due to the notification procedure, the substantive conditions to be fulfilled and the fact that such rebates on airport charges may escape the qualification of State aid if they are transparent and non-discriminatory following the European jurisprudence in the Lübeck Airport case59. 4.2. Public Service Obligations in the air transport sector The Member States may support airlines and improve airport connectivity by imposing PSOs on vital routes. Indeed, under European law, it is possible for the Member States, in order to maintain appropriate scheduled air services on routes which are vital for the economic development of the region they serve, to impose PSOs on these routes. It is essential to emphasise that such legal option is subject to strict procedural rules and is rather costly and, therefore, cannot constitute a useful and long-term tool to develop an airport as it aims at subsidising unprofitable routes. This is mostly applied in France (for around 45 routes) and to link the UK islands, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy or remote parts of Sweden. Member States must respect the conditions and the requirements set out in Articles 16-18 of the Air Services Regulation 1008/200860. Article 16 foresees that “a Member State, following consultations with the other Member States concerned and after having informed the Commission, the airports concerned and air carriers operating on the route, may impose a public service obligation in respect of scheduled air services between an airport in the Community and an airport serving a peripheral or development region in its territory or on a thin route to any airport on its territory any such route being considered vital for the economic and social development of the region which the airport serves. That obligation shall be imposed only to the extent necessary to ensure on that route the minimum provision of scheduled air services satisfying fixed standards of continuity, regularity, pricing or minimum capacity, which air carriers would not assume if they were solely considering their commercial interest”. 59 See above, point 2.2. 60 Regulation (EC) No. 1008/2008 of 24 September 2008 on common rules for the operation of air services in the Community, OJ L 293, 31/10/2008, pp. 3–20.
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