Consumption fines five airlines 179 million for charging for hand luggage and ‘abuses’

The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and the 2030 Agenda has sanctioned budget airlines Ryanair, Vueling, Easyjet, Norwegian and Volotea with fines totaling almost €179 million for “abusive” practices such as charging surcharges for hand luggage . or reserve nearby seats to accompany dependents.

As the authority headed by Pablo Bustunduy announced this Friday, Ryanair was fined 107.7 million euros and Vueling received a fine of 39.2 million euros, with these two airlines accounting for the majority of the total fines. Great.

easyJet’s fine amounts to €29.09 million; The Norwegian has 1.6 million and, finally, Voloteya has 1.18 million euros.

With the signed order, Bustinduy confirmed the sanctions proposed by the General Secretariat for Consumer Affairs and Gaming, announced in May, and therefore rejected the appeals filed by these companies.

Now the investigation, launched by the General Directorate of Consumer Affairs in 2023, into the practice, which was classified as “very serious” violations of consumer protection rules, is coming to an end.

This is the first time that sanctions classified as very serious have been finally approved by the State Consumption Directorate General, whose ministry was given sanctioning powers in June 2022. Sanctions also include an outright ban on the continuation of practices that have been sanctioned.

Among them are the requirement to pay an additional fee for hand luggage in the cabin, a surcharge on the ticket price for full seats for dependents and accompanying persons, no payment in cash or charging a fee for printing the boarding pass.

The calculation of sanctions was carried out by calculating the fine based on the benefits received by the airlines from the offending practice, as set out in the consumer sanctions regime.

This order, signed by Minister Bustinduy, puts an end to the administrative route. Now you can file a controversial administrative complaint with the Chamber of Administrative Cases of the National Court within two months. After this two-month period, if the companies have not appealed to the court, the order will come into force.