The Ministry of Consumption is initiating this Thursday the opening of a file against low cost airlines for charging for hand luggage carried in the cabin. The airlines that may face sanctions are: Ryanair, Vueling, Easyjet, Eurowings and Volotea, according to the association Facua-Consumers in Action to the newspaper El Confidencial.
The association was the one that acted as the complainant, reports the written media. In addition, these measures will also affect other services that are not included in the tickets such as the reservation of the seat next to another passenger in the case of minors or dependents.
They also emphasize from Consumption that the airlines mentioned above "would not be allowing payment in cash at the airport for these additional services", which would go against what is stated in the regulations, emphasizes El Confidencial.
"Very serious" fines of up to 1,000,000 euros
In relation to the sanctions that have been foreseen for the infractions, they can be divided into two groups: the very serious, with fines of between 100,001 and 1,000,000 euros and those considered serious, with fines of between 10,001 and 100,000 euros. In the event that the illicit benefit obtained with the infractions exceeds those amounts of money, in the very serious ones, the sanctions could reach up to between six and eight times the benefit obtained. Regarding serious infractions, they could be up to between four and six times, adds the media.
Due to these practices in which the passenger is charged an additional supplement, "these companies offer very competitive prices in their advertising. This allows them to have a privileged SEO positioning in search engines and in comparators compared to competitors that do include these services in the price of the ticket that is announced in the comparator", point out from the Ministry of Consumption. A final price that does not correspond to the one initially offered, something that affects the consumer, who ends up paying more in most cases.
