Pablo Bustinduy’s Ministry of Consumer Affairs has fined five airlines (Ryanair, Vueling, Easyjet, Norwegian and Volotea) for an amount of 179 million euros for abusive practices, such as charging extra for hand luggage or reserving adjacent seats for accompanying passengers. to dependent people.
The highest fine is for Ryanair with 107,775,777 euros, followed by Vueling, with 39,264,412; Easyjet, with 29,094,441; Norwegian, with 1,610,001 euros, and Volotea with 1,189,000 euros, according to ministry sources.
This is the first time that sanctions classified as very serious have been given finality by the General Administration of the State in the field of consumption, whose ministry acquired sanctioning powers in June 2022. The sanctions also include the express prohibition of continuing with the practices that have been sanctioned.
Specifically, they have been for demanding the payment of a supplement for the transport of hand luggage in the cabin, an extra cost on the price of the ticket for the reservation of adjacent seats in the case of minors and dependent people and their companions and for not allowing cash payment at Spanish airports.
Bustinduy has spoken about the sanction in a message on his X account, in which he has assured that the “commitment” of Consumption is “clear”: “There cannot be business models based on the violation of rights.”
Also for imposing a disproportionate and abusive fee on passengers for printing the boarding pass, misleading omissions of information and lack of clarity in the prices published both on its own website and on third parties, making it difficult to compare price offers to the consumer people and their decision making.
In the case of the airline Ryanair, a practice is also sanctioned by which a disproportionate amount is charged to users for printing the ticket in the terminal when they do not have it.
Consumption explains that to guarantee the proportionality and effectiveness of the sanctions imposed, as well as their deterrent effect, the calculation of the sanctions has been carried out using the criterion of the illicit benefit obtained, that is, calculating the fine based on the benefits obtained by the airlines for infringing practices,
As established by the Consumer sanctioning regime for practices classified as very serious, the sanctions imposed could reach up to six to eight times the illicit benefit obtained when it exceeds the amounts of the stipulated fines (between 100,001 and 1,000,000). of euros).
With the order signed by Pablo Bustinduy, the sanctions proposed by the General Secretariat of Consumer Affairs and Gaming months ago are confirmed and, therefore, the appeals filed by these companies are dismissed.
Companies may file a contentious-administrative appeal before the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the National Court within a period of two months. Once this period has passed, if the companies have not filed an appeal before the court, the order will be effective.
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