Ryanair Loses Strasbourg; Charleroi may be next
 

Ryanair has lost its legal battle for airport subsidies in Strabourg and will cease its flights to/from Strasbourg later this fall. It looks set, however, to start flying in and out of Baden airport in Germany, about 25 miles from Strasbourg.
The next battle will be over Ryanair's special deal with Charleroi airport (it's a stretch to call the airport Brussels South).

Thanks for this tidbit of news. Any sneeze out of Ryanair is important news to Europe travelers, IMO.

Best wishes,

Rex

The French are trying to squeeze out the budget airlines. The UK business sections of the newspapers reckon its because Air France is government owned and has lost a lot of trade to carriers like Ryanair and EasyJet.
BA (after privatisation) tried the same kind of thing with Virgin in the early days.
If the special deal with Charleroi falls through then cheap flights to France will stop. These budget airlines have brought a lot of trade and tourists to places like Montpellier, Nimes and Perpignan - not to mention Strasbourg itself (according to their chamber of commerce). It's sad, but that's the French protecting their state run industries (contrary to EU rules, but heck, when did that matter?).
As a side issue, Concord flew over my house last night whilst making an emergency landing at Cardiff airport. This was at the same time that British TV was showing a programme by Sir Richard Branson accusing BA of deliberately asking Airbus to srcap Concord and that the planes are not dangerous. I may be cynical of BA, but what better rebuttle of an argument can there be?

Oh no! How will this affect our plan to fly from Charleroi to Rome (then Milan to Charleroi) in December?

We have not bought our ryanair tickets yet (but have already bought our Dallas to Brussels tickets).

What would be your advice? (buy ryanair tickets now or search for another regional airline?)

Thanks!

When EasyJet bought out GO they basically cancelled all their flights and tickets (with a refund, of course). But, it left people with no flights to go on unless they could find an EasyJet alternative.
The point is that the budget airlines such as Ryanair may cancel a route with minimal notice.
In all probability you should be OK as these things take time (especially when it comes to European litigation), but there is that small gamble. I'd say stick with it but if the worse happens and the route is cut, don't expect sympathy or help from Ryanair.

I read in yesterday's Guardian (the UK newspaper) that Ryanair may face similar challenges in Italy and Sweden.

Thanks for the updates, BTilke. Do keep them coming!

AR, thanks for your reply. I'll wait a little bit more before I buy our ryanair tickets (and also checking out other regional airlines . . . although right now ryanair is still the best priced!).

Ryanair gives as good as it gets in the 'squeezing out' department.

Two million seats put on the market for virtually free looks an awful lot like market dumping.