According to the Authority, the company does not provide clear information on the fact that the price of additional hand luggage services varies depending on the purchase channel (web or app). Furthermore, the device used by the consumer is deemed to be used as a parameter to proceed with customer profiling and then to differentiate the price

The Italian Competition Authority has opened an investigation into Vueling Airlines S.A., a company active in the air transport market. The proceedings concern the methods for determining the price of additional paid services for hand luggage.

Vueling offers different ways to take luggage on board; one of them is to purchase the service as an add-on, after selecting the basic fare, at the time of buying the ticket or even later. This pricing system means that the price of the hand luggage service cannot be determined in advance, as it will vary based on several factors including the channel through which the service is purchased. In particular, it seems that the price of hand luggage varies depending on whether the service is purchased via the website or via the Vueling app.

However, according to the Authority, the company does not seem to provide clear information on this difference. A consumer who wants to choose this additional service and accesses the Vueling website will not find any information on the price differentiation and will only see, at the bottom of the page, the difference between the price of the service purchased on the web/app and the price of the service purchased at the airport.

Even the section of the website describing the prices for additional flight services does not seem to provide consumers with any clear distinction between the two routes. Finally, it appears that the device used by the consumer is also used as a parameter for customer profiling in order to differentiate the purchase price of the ticket. In the opinion of the Authority, these practices could lead to incomplete, non-transparent and omitted information on the pricing methods related to the purchase of the luggage transport service, differentiated between web and app and on the basis of the use of different devices.

Rome, 11 October 2023