Court orders Ryanair to refund passenger's hand luggage charge on five flights

The judge considered that "it is an indispensable element of passenger transportation," and therefore "cannot be subject to a price supplement"

Xavier Vilaltella

Madrid

Friday, 9 May 2025, 13:08

Ryanair will have to reimburse one of its passengers a total of 147 euros, the amount she had to pay to travel with cabin baggage on five flights she took between 2019 and 2024. This is the result of a ruling - without the possibility of appeal - issued by a court in Salamanca to which SUR's sister newspaper ABC has had access.

Judge Raquel Martínez Marco considered that "hand luggage is an indispensable element of passenger transport", so "it cannot be subject to a price supplement". The complainant initiated the process through the consumer organisation Facua, which with this case has now won five rulings in favour in recent months on account of the hand luggage; not only against the Irish airline, but also against Vueling.

In the text of the ruling, the use of the term "indispensable" is important, as a verdict of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued in 2014, on account of a preliminary ruling issued by a Galician court, in reference to hand luggage, that "it must, in principle, be considered an indispensable element of passenger transport and that its carriage cannot, therefore, be subject to a price supplement". As explained in the ruling, the judge at the Salamanca court relied on this European case law to reach her decision.

However, the issue is more complicated than it seems at first glance, as rulings have gone both ways. On Thursday 8 May Ryanair published a note - and now there are several - stating that a Seville court has confirmed that its hand luggage policy, which allows each passenger to carry a 40 x 25 x 20 cm suitcase under the seat completely free of charge, with the option to add additional luggage for an optional fee if they wish, is legal.

Ongoing war

The backdrop to this story is the ongoing war between Ryanair's CEO, Michael O'Leary, and the Spanish Ministry of Social Rights. It all started in November 2024, when the department headed by Pablo Bustinduy, fined five airlines - Ryanair, Vueling, easyJet, Norwegian and Volotea - 179 million euros, not only for charging for hand luggage, but also for demanding a surcharge for the reservation of adjacent seats in the case of minors and dependent persons, for not allowing payment in cash at Spanish airports, for imposing a fee that the Ministry considered "disproportionate and abusive" for the printing of the boarding card and for "misleading omissions of information and lack of clarity", the consumer affairs note read.

This was followed by a Ryanair campaign which the company decided to make personal with the minister and which included the launch of a special offer under the slogan 'book crazy prices before the clown raises prices'. On the day of the launch, O'Leary appeared before the media accompanied by the effigy of a clown with the face of the consumer affairs minister, whom he called a "communist" for the umpteenth time.

Ryanair also claims to have the law in its favour

The curious thing about this case is the different interpretation of the existing legislation. The position of the airlines - and of the Spanish Airline Association (ALA) - is that charging for hand luggage is legal because it is enshrined in EU Regulation 1008/2008: "Community air carriers and, on the basis of the principle of reciprocity, third country air carriers shall freely determine fares and rates for intra-Community air services".

In turn, and to complicate matters further, Ryanair has repeatedly brought up the 2014 CJEU ruling to justify itself; the same, as we have seen, that the Salamanca judge has used to rule against the airline. In a letter, O'Leary claimed that in 2014 the European court ruled that EU Regulation 1008/2008 must be interpreted as precluding any national law that obliges airlines to carry not only the passenger, but also the baggage "for the price stated on the ticket", and without it being possible to charge a surcharge for carrying such baggage.

The laws are being interpreted very differently. According to Rubén Sánchez, secretary general of Facua, one of the reasons for this is that most of the complaints filed by Spanish users - very few do so - are made through the fast track procedure and without the option of appeal, so that the cases never reach the Supreme Court.

Against the airlines' position, Consumer Affairs justifies its position on the basis of the General Law for the Defence of Consumers and Users and the Spanish Air Navigation Law. In October 2023, the European Parliament proposed to put an end to the disparity of practices in Europe by urging the European Commission to harmonise the standards among the 27 EU Member States.

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