Ryanair must refund a passenger who was charged €56.50 for hand luggage at the airport, a court in the northern Portuguese city of Braga has ruled. The money must be returned, along with interest and legal costs.
The judge presiding over the case, Antonio Oliveira Mestre, found that Ryanair had unlawfully charged its client a fee for hand luggagethe dimensions of which were slightly larger than the 40x25x20 cm required by the airline.
Illegal practice
The judge found that it was an illegal practice to charge extra for having personal luggage that can be carried on board an aircraft and whose size does not exceed 55x40x20 cm.
He noted that the passenger was forced “to pay for her baggage twice” because the cost of transporting her hand bag had in fact already been charged when purchasing the plane ticket.
Luggage measuring 55x40x20 cm is used by many other carriers as the standard hand luggage. So-called low-cost airlines have limited the maximum size of hand luggage in the ticket price a few years ago.
Unprecedented verdict, possible avalanche of lawsuits
Media in Portugal expect that this seemingly symbolic verdict will initiate an avalanche of lawsuits against low-cost airlines, which, like Ryanair, charge an additional fee for exceeding the size of hand luggage or for its greater weight.
Commenting on the ruling, CNN Portugal noted that the verdict is unprecedented in Portugal. It recalled that six similar cases, in which numerous passengers are represented by the Citizen's Voice association, are pending before the Portuguese justice system. They concern Ryanair, Easyjet, Wizzair and Vueling.
“These companies could be forced by the courts to pay passengers compensation worth a total of 10 billion euros,” CNN Portugal reported.
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