Ryanair to appeal ‘unjust decision’ in FACUA case

Ryanair has instructed its lawyers to immediately appeal what it believes as an unjust decision by the Seville Court of First Instance which denied Ryanair an injunction against FACUA (a Spanish consumers group) which wrongly claimed (in a 9th Feb 2011 press release) that Ryanair was “committing fraud every day”.

These false claims by FACUA, which claimed that Ryanair’s unavoidable admin fee, its unavoidable web check-in fee and its unavoidable airport check-in penalty were “frauds and abuse suffered by passengers” are totally inaccurate. Since each of these optional fees is clearly brought to the attention of all consumers before they book a flight on Ryanair, and since all consumers are free to choose whether to pay for or avoid these services and fees, before they pay for their Ryanair tickets, there is no truth whatsoever to these FACUA claims of fraud.

Ryanair notes that while FACUA makes these false and untrue claims about Ryanair’s policies, they ignore the fact that more passengers at Spanish airports prefer to choose Ryanair over all other Spanish airlines. Ryanair also notes that FACUA has repeatedly remained silent about the unfair and unavoidable fuel surcharges levied by Spanish airlines (but not Ryanair) and has taken no action whatsoever against Spanish screenscrapers who continue to mislead consumers and levy hidden charges upon them.

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said;

“Ryanair regrets the decision of the lower Seville Court not to grant us an injunction against these false claims of fraud by FACUA. We have no problem with reasonable criticisms of any Ryanair policy by consumer agencies, but these false claims that we “commit fraud every day” are unfair, untrue and cannot be allowed to stand.

We do not believe the court’s reasoning is legally valid. The court’s finding that we have not proven defamation, have not suffered damage, or that there is no urgency in this case are not, in our opinion, legally valid. We will immediately appeal this decision and we expect that the Higher Courts in Seville will grant us an injunction to prevent FACUA repeating these false, untrue and damaging claims of fraud.”