Following up on our previous blog post and on the ongoing Ryanair scandal, our readers may be interested that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the UK's aviation regulator, started an enforcement action against Ryanair. The CAA alleges that Ryanair persistently mislead passengers by providing inaccurate information regarding their rights guaranteed by Regulation 261/2004 in respect of the cancelled flights, particularly their rights about re-routing, and reimbursement of expenses caused by the cancellation (for example, meals, hotels and transfer costs). With these omissions Ryanair has breached the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulation 2008 (implementing Directive 2005/29/EC on Unfair Commercial Practices), the breach of which triggered the empowerment of the CAA to use enforcement actions for the protection of collective interest of consumers based on the Enterprise Act 2002. With the enforcement action the CAA now asks Ryanair to change its practice (voluntarily), should this not be the case, the CAA will then seek a court injunction against Ryanair (see for more here).
As we have discussed previously, enforcement matter of EU-wide infringements such as this (where a large number of EU consumers in various Member States are affected) essentially remain national (see our posts here and here). So the question that logically follows is, what have other countries do to make Ryanair to protect their customers? Has there been a similar action in your Member State? Please share this information with our readers in comments below.
