A court of Madrid has condemned ryanair to pay 1,836 euros to two police officers who were not allowed to board with their weapons, despite the fact that they were on duty, on a flight that was headed on July 28, 2022 from Tenerife to the capital, and has established that the company must compensate the moral damages they suffered.
The first instance court number 5 of the capital has agreed with the two agents and has increased the amount that Ryanair must pay them for the damages derived from the impossibility of boarding that flight.
Ryanair agreed to pay 1,436.86 euros, “recognizing, therefore, the unjustified nature of the denied boarding, as well as the material damage”, although refused to pay the 400 euros that they claimed for moral damages, understanding that said amount was not justified and that it should be within the compensation provided for in the European regulation that regulates the rules on compensation in cases like this.
A thesis that the magistrate does not share in her sentence, against which an appeal is possible and to which EFE has had access, in which she makes it clear that he supreme court has established that compensation for non-material damage, in cases of flight delays or cancellations, can be given independently of the amounts established in the aforementioned regulation.
That July 28, the agents, who were on duty, went to the boarding gate, where they were denied boarding the plane with the weapon, despite having filled out the necessary document to be able to take it into the cabin, according to the lawsuit.
Both had to buy new tickets the next day “given the need to reach their destination because of their profession.”
“It is not only that the denial of boarding had no legal justification, but it is clear that everything that happened caused the passengers the need to have to endure the physical and mental fatigue derived from having to look for other alternative flights, with the consequent capsize and anxiety derived from the uncertainty that this entails; assuming unforeseen expenses, losing a day upon arrival at destination and having to spend a night in another city”, the sentence states.
And it adds that, “as a result of the unjustified actions of the defendant”, the agents “have been forced to file a lawsuit and follow a judicial procedure until sentencing, which only abounds in non-pecuniary damage”.
The lawyers for the agents representing the Jupol police union, Manuel Chamorro and Ignacio Aznar, consider that it has been an “abusive practice”. by the company, even when the police “carried all the regulatory documentation and limited themselves to carrying out a service”.
