Cyprus Airways suspended operations Jan. 9, after the European Commission (EC) ordered it to pay back over €65 million ($76.9 million) in illegal state aid, plus interest. In a statement, the EC ruled Cyprus Airways had "no realistic perspective of becoming viable without continued state subsidies." "Cyprus Airways has received large quantities of public money since 2007, but was unable to restructure and become viable without continued state support. Therefore, injecting additional public money would only have prolonged the struggle without achieving a turnaround. Companies need to be profitable based on their own merits and their ability to compete and cannot and should not rely on taxpayer money to stay in the market artificially," Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.
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