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Raquel Merino
Malaga
Saturday, 21 September 2024, 08:16
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A leading independent Spanish consumer group has succeeded in getting Irish airline Ryanair to refund one of its members the extra money the airline charged for carrying her hand luggage. This is the first out of court resolution obtained by Facua for such a case.
This resolution comes on the back of the fine of more than 150 million euros imposed last May by Spain's Secretary General for Consumer Affairs issued to the Irish airline along with easyJet, Vueling and Volotea.
The big fine was based not only on the imposition of extra charges made to customers for carrying their hand luggage, but also on other grounds. These included extra charges for the reservation of an adjacent seat for accompanying minors or dependants, the vagueness in the pre-contractual information on the price of these airlines' services, their refusal to take payment in cash for these extra charges and the 20-euro fee charged for printing boarding cards at check-in.
In this particular case the passenger, who happened to be a member of Facua, purchased flights last May to travel from her home city of Seville to Santiago de Compostela. The only option Ryanair gave her to take her hand luggage into the cabin was to select the "Priority and two pieces of hand luggage" option, which increased her basic fare by 13.20 euros (6.60 euros each way). In total, she paid 74.38 euros for her tickets.
As Facua explained, a few days after paying these extra charges, the female passenger joined the protest platform set up by the consumer group for all those affected by the illegal charging of hand luggage and other irregularities in the airline industry.
At the end of June, Facua's Seville branch contacted the Irish airline to demand a refund of the 13.20 euros overcharged. They accompanied the letter with information on the current regulation - article 97 of Law 48/1960, of 21 July, on Air Navigation - that obliges airlines to transport passengers' hand luggage at no additional cost to the original price of the ticket.
Facua pointed out that this regulation stipulates that "the carrier shall be obliged to transport together with the passengers, and within the price of the ticket, the luggage with the weight limits, regardless of the number of packages, and volume set by the regulations." Also that "the carrier shall be obliged to carry free of charge in the cabin, as hand luggage, the objects and packages which the passenger carries with them, including articles purchased in shops located in airports."
On 27 August the airline replied to the customer by email, informing her that they were going to refund the 13.20 euros that she had been charged for her hand luggage.
On Thursday this week the Minister for Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2030, Pablo Bustinduy, announced that in "the coming weeks" he will conclude the case against Ryanair, easyJet, Vueling and Volotea for which his department imposed a fine of 150 million euros for "abusive practices", following the appeals lodged by the airlines.
Bustinduy has clearly stated that, as the ministry is conducting a legal review of the whole case, "until it is publicly concluded" he cannot enter into "an assessment of its content."
After the fine was announced at the end of May the Spanish Airline Association (ALA) rejected this decision because it "will harm consumers" who do not need certain services. ALA estimated that around 50 million passengers who do not carry cabin luggage on board and only travel with hand luggage that fits under the seat "would not benefit from paying only for essential services, forcing them to contract services they do not use."
These are the first fines imposed by the Spanish government's own consumer authority since it took over sanctioning powers in May 2022 following a modification of the general law for consumer protection.
In addition, the penalties imposed "are also the highest ever applied by a consumer protection authority", according to Facua, which underlines the fact that the one imposed on Ryanair "multiplies by far" the highest penalties made to date.
The ministry's department for consumer affairs had opened proceedings in June 2023 to investigate whether these practices were abusive or unfair and whether they contravened consumer law. The decision to impose such a fine, therefore, came pretty quickly.
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