Britain\u2019s competition watchdog said on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into Irish carrier Ryanair over fees that parents must pay to sit with their children.<\/p>\n
The no-frills airline requires at least one parent to sit with children aged two to 11 during a flight, but that means they must pay for what is called a \u201cmandatory family seat\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating whether the fee, typically around \u20a48 ($11) per flight, is \u201cunfair\u201d under consumer law.<\/p>\n
For other passengers, reserving a seat is optional.<\/p>\n
The CMA said it would determine whether Ryanair\u2019s seat reservation fees mean parents are being charged to meet \u201cchild safety and disability-related obligations as set out under aviation rules\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CMA understands that Ryanair is the only major airline flying out of the UK to impose this charge,\u201d the agency added.<\/p>\n
It also noted that Ryanair does not apply the fee on flights to and from Italy following action by the Italian civil aviation authority.<\/p>\n
In response, Ryanair said its family seating policy \u201cfully complies with all relevant laws and regulations\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdults travelling with children pay one reserved seat fee, but can select reserved seats beside them for up to 4 children on the same booking free of charge,\u201d the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cRyanair looks forward to disproving these false CMA claims during this bogus investigation,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
The CMA said it expected to provide an update on the investigation within six months.<\/p>\n
Infringing on consumer protection laws can lead to fines of up to 10 per cent of a company\u2019s global revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Britain\u2019s competition watchdog said on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into Irish carrier Ryanair over fees that parents must pay to sit with their children. The no-frills airline requires at least one parent to sit with children aged two to 11 during a flight, but that means they must pay for what is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18467,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18465\/revisions\/18467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}