Pablo Bustinduy’s Ministry of Consumer Affairs has fined five airlines (Ryanair, Vueling, Easyjet, Norwegian and Volotea) 179 million euros for abusive practices, such as charging extra for hand luggage or for reserving adjacent seats for accompanying dependents.
The sanction imposed on the airline company by the agency of the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030 is 17 times the highest amount ever imposed on a single company by a consumer protection authority.
The highest penalty 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 are given finality by the General State Administration in the field of consumption, whose ministry acquired sanctioning competence in June 2022.
Prohibition to continue charging for carry-on baggage
Penalties also include the express prohibition to continue with the practices that have been sanctioned.
Specifically, they have been penalized for requiring the payment of a supplement for the carriage of hand luggage in the cabin, a surcharge on the ticket price for the reservation of adjacent seats in the case of minors and dependent persons and their companions, and for not allowing payment in cash at Spanish airports.
Also for imposing a disproportionate and abusive fee on passengers for printing the boarding passmisleading omissions of information and lack of clarity in the prices published both on its own website and those of third parties, hindering the comparability of price offers to consumers and their decision making.
In the case of the airline Ryanair, a practice is also sanctioned whereby users are charged a disproportionate amount for printing the ticket at the terminal when it is not available.
Consumo explains that in order to ensure the proportionality and effectiveness of the penalties imposed, as well as their deterrent effect, the calculation of the penalties has been made using the criterion of the illicit benefit obtained, i.e. calculating the fine based on the profits obtained by the airlines from the infringing practices,
As established in the Consumer regime of sanctions for the practices classified as very serious in the case of very serious practices[]the penalties imposed could be up to six to eight times the illicit profit obtained when this exceeds the amounts of the stipulated fines (between 100,001 and 1,000,000 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 the appeals filed by these companies are therefore dismissed.
The companies may file a contentious-administrative appeal before the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Audiencia Nacional within two months. Once this period has elapsed, if the companies have not filed an appeal before the courts, the order will be effective.
Illegal collection of surcharge
Facua had been denouncing since 2018 before different bodies the illegal charging of the surcharge for traveling with hand luggage, when Ryanair implemented this practice, which was later joined by other companies.
In 2023, the Directorate General of Consumer Affairs of the Balearic Islands shelved the four sanctioning proceedings it had open – two of them the result of Facua’s complaints against Ryanair and Vueling – in order to defer to the Ministry so that the fines would be much higher.
Will they still charge for baggage?
Airlines will be able to maintain their current fare policy, despite the Consumer Affairs fine of 150 million to four companies, until the sanction, if any, becomes final, once the appeal is resolved and the judicial process.
The companies are already preparing appeals (to the Administration itself) and do not rule out legal action, the president of the Airline Association (ALA), Javier Gándara, is convinced that they will be right.
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