On November 29, 2017, the Italian Competition Authority decided to open the non-compliance procedure against Ryanair, which did not respect the resolution of the Authority adopted on October 25, 2017 that ordered the Irish air carrier Ryanair to give consumers clear, transparent and immediately accessible information on their rights granted by Regulation CE 261/2004. The decision was a direct result of the flight cancellations occurred in September and October, that prompted the opening of an official investigation on 20 September 2017.
During the investigation, the Antitrust Authority found evidence that the air company gave incomplete, non-transparent and misleading information, both on its website and in its communications to consumers, concerning the right of the Italian passengers to a monetary compensation following the cancellations of their flights, which were largely due to the organizational and management failures of the carrier itself.
Such a behavior appears to be capable of causing serious and irreparable harm to consumers also because the more time passes from the flight cancellation, the less likely it is that passengers will ever claim the monetary compensation to which they are entitled.
For these reasons, the Authority required Ryanair to provide (either through a communication specifically directed to Italian consumers or through the company’s Italian website):
- immediately accessible and comprehensible information not only on the right to a refund or to the rescheduling of the cancelled flight, but also on the cases in which passengers are entitled to a further monetary compensation;
- the date, route and flight number (eg FRxxx) of each cancelled flight in relation to which the passenger not only has the right to the refund or to the free rescheduling, but also to the monetary compensation;
- clear information on the procedure consumers must follow in order to obtain the refund / free flight rescheduling and the monetary compensation to which they are entitled.
Agcm may impose a pecuniary fine of between 10,000 and 5,000,000 euros.
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