The practices of low cost airlines to offer low prices to users are in the spotlight of Consumption. The Ministry has announced this Thursday that it has opened a disciplinary file against several airlines, including Ryanair, Vueling, Easyjet and Volotea, for the collection of hand luggage and other extra costs that are not initially advertised in the initial ticket price. In this way, Consumption appreciates the continuous complaints that consumer organizations have been making for years, as confirmed by FACUA-Consumers in Action itself.
Beyond hand luggage, the file of the Directorate General for Consumer Affairs also refers to other additional costs applied to services that were traditionally included in the price of the ticket, such as the reservation of the seat next to another passenger in the case of minors or dependent people. The fact of not allowing cash payments at airports for said additional services, contrary to what is dictated by the regulations, is also reprimanded.
According to Consumption, this practice of “cutting off services traditionally included in the price of the ticket and charging the passenger a supplement for them” allows these companies to “offer very competitive prices in their advertising” and “have a privileged SEO positioning in search engines.” search and in the comparators with respect to competitors that do include these services in the price of the ticket that is advertised in the comparator”. The note concludes that the price that is initially offered on the web pages does not correspond “in most cases” to the price that the consumer ends up paying.
In the Ministry’s communication, it is also recalled that the infractions for which it has filed the airlines can be considered as serious or very serious infractions, and be sanctioned with fines of between 10,001 and 100,000 euros, in the case of serious ones, and between 100,001 and 1,000,000 euros, in the case of very serious ones.
The first complaint before the ministry for the collection of hand luggage is from October 2021, specifically against Vueling. Previously, in 2018, Facua had already denounced Ryanair and Wizzair before the State Aviation Safety Agency and the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) for this reason, without any of the two organizations notifying it of any type of action. in this regard, the organization points out.
Facua assures in a statement that in March 2021, the Balearic Islands decided to open a disciplinary file against Ryanair for these practices as a result of the complaint filed three years ago. In April 2022, it opened another against Vueling due to another complaint and later also filed Easyjet and Volotea, although this year it has decided to archive all these sanctioning files so that the Ministry of Consumption is the one that fines, according to Facua.
