The main complaints are related to flight delays and cancellations, incidents with baggage or the charging of boarding passes at check-in.
Today, 15 March, International Consumer Day is celebrated to raise awareness and promote the basic rights of all consumers and demand that they are respected and protected.
Last year, the Directorate General for Services, Pharmacy and Consumer Affairs of the Regional Ministry of Health received 790 complaints related to air transport, while 138 complaints have been filed so far this year. For the second year in a row, incidents with airlines have outnumbered complaints against telephone companies.
Air transport complaints in 2024 are distributed by the island as follows: Mallorca: 492; Menorca: 198; and Ibiza: 90.
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Consumer Affairs handled 790 complaints about incidents in air transport during 2024
The incidents correspond to the charging of hand luggage; incidents in the transport of luggage, such as breakage, late delivery or loss of luggage; delays of more than three hours, overbooking and flight cancellations; the charge for issuing the boarding card; errors when making the reservation or the airline’s refusal to refund the money for the ticket that could not be used by the consumer.
Consumer advice
In online marketplaces, it is necessary to be careful and take basic precautions when buying or contracting services, avoiding the risks of websites that impersonate the real ones, and which either will not send us the purchased product and we will lose the money paid, or they may even use our data and those of the credit cards with which we have paid to make purchases by impersonating our identity.
It should also be remembered that, in purchases on online marketplaces, and in general in all distance purchases, the consumer has the right to return the product within 14 days of receiving it at home, without having to give any explanation to the company. This is known as the right of withdrawal. It is a right that the law grants to all consumers who buy at a distance or outside the business premises of the company.
Users who contract services at a distance (on the Internet, by telephone, etc.) also have this right, although there are some services in which this right is not granted, such as the booking of flights or hotels. When contracting services from a distance, the deadline for exercising the right of withdrawal begins as soon as the service is contracted, so it is important to be careful and exercise the right early to avoid missing the deadline.
Flight bookings also create problems for air travellers. Before booking the first flight offered by the Internet search engine/comparison engine, check whether the airline of your choice will charge for hand luggage; if it does and you have hand luggage, add the price of the ticket and the price of the hand luggage so that you can compare the price correctly with the prices of flights on other airlines that do not charge for hand luggage.
In service sectors, such as telephone companies and energy marketing companies, beware of calls offering cheaper products, as sometimes they are not, but when contracting by telephone we will not have proof of the offer and, in addition to not having the offer applied to us, we may have been changed to another company without our knowledge or consent.
In traditional markets, advice starts by comparing prices in several establishments: as prices are free in a market economy, the same product can have a big difference in price from one establishment to another.
Information on how to file a complaint:
https://www.caib.es/sites/consumidor/ca/nova_reclamacio_de_consum/
Information on how to enquire Consumer Affairs:
https://www.caib.es/sites/consumidor/ca/sistema_de_cita_previa-83581/
You can complain about delays (more than three hours), cancellations and overbooking on the EASA website.