The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) has initiated competition supervision proceedings against Ryanair

According to the announcement, the GVH noticed that Ryanair DAC (Ryanair) provides misleading information to consumers on its Hungarian-language website during the online flight ticket purchase process in several aspects.

The GVH suspects that the company is not adequately informing customers when booking tickets for a round trip or for multiple passengers at the same time that the fare package options and fees for certain optional services must be paid separately for the round trip and for each passenger individually.

In this context, Ryanair is likely to engage in an unfair commercial practice by displaying the prices of the “Regular”, “Plus” and “FlexiPlus” fare package options, as well as the prices of the “Priority Boarding and 2 hand bags”, “10 kg checked baggage”, “20 kg checked baggage” and “Security Fast Track” optional services, thereby inducing consumers to make decisions that they would not otherwise make.

In addition, the office also found that Ryanair is likely to engage in a practice on its Hungarian-language website during the online flight ticket purchase process by exerting psychological pressure and disturbing the consumer, which may be capable of distorting the consumer’s decision.

In this way, the company creates the impression, with eye-catching colors, visual solutions and inscriptions, that the price and additional services of the “Regular” fare package option are favorable compared to the “Basic” fare option.

The GVH noted, however, that the final fee payable could be lower if consumers manually added the same additional services that are otherwise included in the “Regular” fare package option to the “Basic” fare option one by one during the purchase.