Ryanair has pledged to appeal against a Spanish ruling preventing the airline from charging passengers for failing to print out their own boarding passes.
A judge in Spain was ruling on a case brought by a Spanish lawyer Dan Miro who was charged the standard Ryanair fee of 40 euros for failing to print his boarding card before a flight.
“The normal practice over the years has been that the obligation to issue the boarding card has always fallen on the carrier,” Judge Barbara Maria Cordoba of the Barcelona commercial court said in the ruling.
“I declare unfair and therefore void the contractual clause in which Ryanair obliges the passenger to be the one who brings the printed boarding pass to travel or face a penalty of 40 euros.”
The Consumers Union of Spain welcomed the decision, describing Ryanair’s policy on boarding cards as “abusive.”
“International air traffic laws, to which Ryanair is subject, oblige a transporter to provide the travel document,” it said.
A spokesman for the no-frills carrier said it would appeal, adding: “Over 99.9% of Ryanair’s passengers used our web check-in facility last year.”
A Civil Aviation Authority spokesman said the Spanish ruling would have to be upheld in the European courts before it could be enforced at UK airports.