European Commission Taking Enforcement Action Against Spain After It Fined Airlines €179 Million

The European Commission has started enforcement action against Spain over a record €179 million fine that was imposed on five low-cost airlines, including Ryanair and Vueling, late last year for ‘abusive practices’ such as charging passengers for hand luggage.

The Spanish government also criticized the airlines for other typical money-making schemes like imposing surcharges for printing boarding passes at the airport, and making parents pay extra to have a guaranteed seat next to their child.

Ryanair was slapped with the largest fine and was ordered to pay €107 million for what Spain’s Minister of Consumer Affairs Pablo Bustinduy described as “very serious” violations of consumer regulations.

Spanish budget carrier Vueling was fined more than €39 million, and EasyJet received a penalty of €29 million. Norwegian and Volotea were slapped with much smaller fines of €1.6 million and €1.18 million, respectively.

The Spanish government argues that these airlines have been brazenly violating a set of regulations known as the Spanish Air Navigation Law that has been in place since the 1960s.

The regulations expressly forbid airlines from charging additional fees for a range of services, but rather than being a champion of consumer rights, the European Commission believes the decades-old Spanish law restricts the freedom of airlines to set their own prices.

Brussels has invited Spain to take part in talks over the next two months, at the end of which, the country will be expected to ‘harmonize’ its national laws with European regulations that established the right for airlines to set their own prices.

If Spain doesn’t meet this requirement, then the European Commission has to give lawmakers a second chance to comply before they can even think of escalating the dispute to the Court of Justice of the European Union.

In the past, European courts have established that passengers should be allowed to bring hand luggage onboard the aircraft with them as long as it is a reasonable size and weight.

Many airlines have interpreted this to mean a small personal item that fits under the seat in front. Anything larger generally incurs a charge, or a novel way to circumvent the legal gray area, is to sell priority boarding to the exact number of passengers that match the number of cases that can fit in the overhead bins.

Interestingly, Brussels is taking this action despite a proposed new law dreamt up by a European Commission committee known as TRAN (travel and tourism) that would ban airlines from charging passengers for hand luggage.

Although it has been widely reported that Brussels will make hand luggage free again, it’s important to note that this is only a proposed set of regulations, of it may never come to fruition.

That’s certainly the hope of the airline industry, which accused Brussels of ‘meddling’ in matters they know nothing about.