Ryanair Faces €5,000-Per-Day Fines Over Online Pressure-Selling Practices

Ireland’s largest low-cost airline, Ryanair (FR), now confronts the threat of €5,000 (£4,300) in daily fines unless it ceases certain marketing and pricing tactics on its website that a Belgian commercial court has deemed unlawful, reported Reuters. The ruling, delivered on 28 January 2026, stems from a legal challenge initiated by the Belgian consumer association Testachats, backed by European consumer network Euroconsumers, and has wide implications for ticketing transparency across Europe.

The court decision mandates that Ryanair halt specific tactics — such as artificially induced scarcity messages and misleading discount claims — within three months or face penalties capped at significant sums. The judgment followed months of scrutiny into Ryanair’s digital sales and pricing model, which relies on very low headline fares augmented by ancillary fees.

Ryanair at a Glance

Rynaiar’s Legal Ruling Details

The Brussels Commercial Court concluded that several of Ryanair’s online practices violate Belgian and broader EU consumer protection law. The judge identified four practices as “illegal” because they impair price transparency and mislead customers during the booking process.

Key banned practices include:

• False scarcity warnings that suggest flights are nearly full, with messages such as “only 5 seats left at this price“, as quoted by A News.

• Misleading discount displays based on fictitious reference prices.

• Bundled fare presentations that obscure individual component pricing.

• Failure to show checked baggage prices separately for outbound and return segments.

Jean-Philippe Ducart, a Testachats spokesperson, told AFP that the court’s decision aims to force Ryanair to display clear individual prices early in the booking process to allow meaningful comparisons between airlines. “Several aspects of Ryanair’s booking process are currently unclear or misleading,” he said.

Beyond the fines, the court has explicitly tied compliance timelines to improving transparency, not just cosmetic changes. If Ryanair fails to implement required adjustments, each violation could incur a €5,000 daily penalty.

Ryanair’s Response

Despite the ruling against certain practices, Ryanair praised parts of the decision that upheld aspects of its policy. Reuters reported that the parts of the decision that upheld’s Ryanair’s policy included:

• charging for large cabin luggage
• charging parents to book a seat beside their children

The same source also quoted Ryanair’s Chief Marketing Officer Dara Brady’s statement:

“We welcome this clear and comprehensive ruling confirming – once again and in line with EU and national courts across Italy, Germany, Spain, and the EU Court of Justice – that Ryanair’s cabin bag policy is fully compliant with EU law.”

Ryanair has filed notice of intent to appeal certain aspects of the decision, while consumer groups have indicated they do not plan to challenge the parts of the judgment they won.

Similar Regulatory Challenges Faced by Ryanair

Around the end of 2024, Ryanair, and four other carriers were fined €179 million by Spanish Ministry of Consumer Affairs for “abusive practices such as charging extra for hand luggage or reserving adjacent seats for accompanying disabled persons and children“, reported Euronews.

Ryanair was penalized for charging excessive fees on passengers who needed to print their boarding passes at the airport when they arrived without one, though the carrier has gone with fully digital boarding passes now.

When the news broke out, Minister Pablo Bustinduy was quoted as having told the press that ‘no company, no matter how big or powerful, is above the law‘ and that ‘there can be no business models based on the violation of consumer rights or abusive practices‘.

Judicial and regulatory news sources

Marco Scialdone, Head of Litigation at Euroconsumers, described the Belgian court decision as a “decisive win for market transparency,” adding that airlines must “no longer rely on misleading price tactics, fake discounts or hidden costs to drive sales.”

A Few Other Historical Notes on Ryanair’s Unfair/ Misleading Practices

1. Boarding pass surcharge ruled abusive (Spain, 2011)

In 2011, a Spanish commercial court ruled that Ryanair could not lawfully charge passengers a surcharge for failing to bring a printed boarding pass to the airport, finding that the airline was bound by international air travel conventions to provide boarding passes without punitive fees.

2. EU court mandate on full price transparency (2020)

The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in 2020 that Ryanair must indicate the full ticket price up front, including unavoidable fees and taxes such as check-in fees and card charges, to comply with EU consumer pricing law and avoid misleading customers about total travel costs.

According to a different report published in Reuters, the judges said:

“Ryanair had to show in its initial offer unavoidable and foreseeable taxes, surcharges and fees. Optional price supplements could be left until the start of the booking process……They found that fees for using a credit card were unavoidable and should be shown in the initial offer…..Check-in fees also needed to be shown unless there was at least one option to check in free of charge.”

3. UK Advertising Standards Authority “misleading environmental claims” (2020)

In 2020, the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned an ad campaign by Ryanair that claimed it had the “lowest CO2 emissions of any major airline,” ruling the environmental claim was misleading and could not be substantiated — a form of false or deceptive advertising under advertising codes.

However, a report published in Sky News, said that after such complaints, Ryanair, changed its tune, and claimed:

• Use of the term “low CO₂ emissions” in radio and television advertising was intended to mean “below the industry average”.
• In its print advertising, the carrier compared its carbon dioxide emissions per passenger per kilometer with those of four other large European airlines.
• There no universally accepted definition of which airlines could be said “major”- [After all, an airline such as Summit Air, which operates a Let L-410 Turbolet to Lukla Airport, which is considered to be the most dangerous in the world, could also be regarded as a “major” airline, albeit in the content of Nepalese aviation].

Where does Ryanair go from here?

Testachats spokesman Jean-Philippe Ducart told AFP that the organization plans to hold talks with the airline that generated much free publicity during its latest spat with Elon Musk over The Big Idiot Sale, stressing that improving transparency remains its top priority.

According to the consumer group, Ryanair employs tactics that pressure customers and limit their ability to carefully compare fares with those offered by competing airlines.

Ducart was quoted in The Times of Malta to have said:

“We want prices to be clearly displayed, with each service listed separately. Consumers have the right to be properly informed, without manipulation, so they can make decisions in full knowledge of the facts,”

For Ryanair, any attention it gets is a good one – after all the carrier once claimed that it was likely to charge passengers to go to a lavatory. Maybe it would need to do so, if it doesn’t change some of its policies and incurs a fine of 5,000 Euros per day.