Ancient History? Not at all. Air France is still a state concern & plans for privatisation have been continually postponed - it's now causing concern in the merger talks with KLM......Olympic continues to be a complete basket case, with the Greek govt desperate to dump it, the Swiss stumped up more cash to create another (failing) ego project, New Zealand bailed their airline out when it couldn't compete any longer.....subsidies are still alive & well.
This doesn't excuse the case of Ryanair as somehow being different of course, although one might argue that subsidies may have beneficial effects in some circumstances.
Again, I have no intention of defending Ryanair on this one, just trying to paint a balanced picture.