Ryanair on Wednesday lost EU court challenges to public bailouts of rival companies such as Air France and SAS, made to help them get through the coronavirus pandemic.

But the Irish low-cost airline immediately said it would appeal.

Ryanair has pursued a legal campaign across Europe to stop bailout deals for the bloc's legacy airlines, arguing the state aid gives them an unfair advantage.

It lost two cases on Wednesday: one involving a tax delay for Air France and other French airlines, and another that offers loan guarantees for Sweden's airlines, mainly SAS.

The EU's lower General Court, based in Luxembourg, said in a statement that "this aid scheme is appropriate to remedy the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and does not constitute discrimination," in reference to the French case.

The court said that the limitation of the loan guarantee scheme to Swedish airlines "is appropriate for achieving the objective of remedying the serious disturbance in Sweden’s economy".

Ryanair -- Europe's biggest airline in terms of passenger numbers -- is also seeking to undo Germany's massive bailout of Lufthansa in the EU courts.

The reverses in court for Ryanair were just a first round. Its appeal will now see the cases move to the higher European Court of Justice.

Ryanair said it counted on the higher court to "give airlines and consumers a glimmer of hope that national politicians obsessed with their flag carriers will be sent back to the drawing board and required to use state aid wisely".

This would "assist the recovery of traffic in the post-Covid world instead of bailing out their favoured airline at the expense of fair competition and consumers," the company added.