What article 97 says — and what it does not

Article 97 of Ley 48/1960 separates two things. Checked baggage must be carried within the ticket price up to limits set by regulation. For hand baggage a separate sentence has applied since Ley 1/2011: the carrier must "carry free of charge in the cabin the objects and bags the passenger takes with them, including articles bought in the airport shops", and may refuse them "only on safety grounds". It names no centimetres and no kilos — which is why the second pillar is consumer law: art. 82.1 RDL 1/2007 makes non-negotiated terms abusive where they significantly disadvantage the consumer, art. 89.4 and 89.5 name imposed ancillary services and surcharges with no separable extra service, and art. 83 declares such terms void.

Binding today — and what only arrives in 2027

Binding: article 97, the rules on abusive terms, and final civil judgments in their own case. Not binding: the fines. The ministry itself wrote on 22 November 2024 that an appeal to the Audiencia Nacional was open within two months. Vueling filed one on 29 January 2025 according to the IAG 2024 annual report; Infobae reported on 26 June 2025 that the fines on Ryanair and Norwegian had been provisionally suspended against security.

Europe is pulling the other way. The European Commission opened infringement proceedings against Spain in October 2025 (INFR(2025)4019): the Spanish rule unduly restricts the pricing freedom of Regulation 1008/2008; per que.es of 17 August 2026 the case was still open. The reformed passenger-rights regulation, approved by the Council on 13 July 2026, guarantees according to the Council's statement only price transparency and the small personal item — and applies only twelve months and twenty days after publication in the Official Journal. Consumer body OCU called that a step backwards on 12 July 2026.

Step by step: how to claim the money back

1. Secure the evidence. Booking confirmation with an itemised price, boarding pass, proof of payment of the supplement, flight number, date. If you were charged at the gate, keep that receipt too. Screenshots of the booking process help: many claims rest on a lack of transparency.

2. Complain to the airline in writing. First to customer service, by its form or by recorded delivery, with flight, date, booking reference, amount, bank details and the grounds: art. 97 of Ley 48/1960 and arts. 82, 83 and 89 of RDL 1/2007. On the Canary consumer administration's own account this is the first step; you get an acknowledgment, and the company has one month to reply.

3. File the complaint sheet. If no reply comes or it is unsatisfactory, the hoja de reclamaciones follows — in the Canaries, per the Dirección General de Comercio y Consumo, by QR code, at a municipal consumer office (OMIC) or at the directorate itself. For money back it is a reclamación; a denuncia only triggers a penalty procedure.

4. AESA is not competent — which saves months. The aviation agency handles cancellations, delays of three hours or more, denied boarding and reduced-mobility matters. Its own procedure catalogue expressly excludes "complaints about baggage, the contract of carriage and its terms, fares and charges".

5. Arbitration — only if the airline agrees. In consumer arbitration (Junta Arbitral de Consumo) the award binds both sides, but companies submit voluntarily: if the airline declines, no arbitration takes place.

6. Court — no lawyer up to 2,000 euros. Under arts. 23.2.1º and 31.2.1º of the Civil Procedure Act you need neither a lawyer nor a court agent in a juicio verbal up to 2,000 euros. Nor do you need to travel to the mainland: art. 52.1.14º LEC gives jurisdiction over actions to void general contract terms to the court of the claimant's domicile.

Time limits and joint action

A claim for flights already taken is possible: art. 1964.2 of the Civil Code sets five years for personal actions, running from the moment performance could be demanded — in practice from payment; a provable written demand interrupts the period. Nothing is automatic: the fines oblige no refund to individual passengers. Joint action is still possible. FACUA runs the free Aerofraudes platform — not a class action but bundled individual cases, from which the rulings in Málaga, Huesca, Valladolid and Oviedo came. OCU runs the "No sin mi maleta" campaign against six airlines and puts the supplements at 5 to 40 euros.

What the airlines say

Ryanair announced on its own corporate site on 22 November 2024 that it would appeal the fines immediately; in the Spanish-language version of the statement chief executive Michael O'Leary is quoted saying these "illegal and unfounded fines, invented by Spain's consumer ministry for political reasons, clearly infringe EU law". The basis is the pricing freedom of Regulation 1008/2008. Vueling, per the IAG 2024 annual report, considers its hand-baggage policy soundly grounded in law. The industry's argument: the supplement is part of a fare structure that makes very cheap basic tickets possible at all. The Court of Justice accepted that in 2014 for checked baggage — and expressly not for hand baggage.