Hotel associations and leisure operators in southern Gran Canaria are following with extreme concern the opening of a formal investigation by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) against Ryanair, the continent's largest low-cost airline. The British regulator's proceedings are scrutinizing the company's "compulsory family seat" charge, an average fee of £8 per flight applied to ensure that adults sit next to children between the ages of two and eleven. Given that the UK is the main foreign source market for the tourist resorts of Maspalomas, Playa del Inglés, and Meloneras, any forced change to the airline's ancillary pricing structure threatens to disrupt British families' budgets for the summer season.
The CMA investigation focuses on determining whether this surcharge constitutes an "abusive" contractual clause and whether it involves the prohibited practice of price trickling, by concealing this mandatory cost until the final stages of the online booking process. While direct competitors with strong connections to Gando Airport—such as TUI, Jet2, and easyJet—allocate adjacent seats for children and accompanying adults free of charge and automatically, Ryanair requires at least one adult to pay a booking fee ranging from £4 to £13,50. The potential impact on the flow of visitors to the south of the UK is massive, considering that the Irish airline carried some 60 million passengers on its British routes last year and that these types of surcharges are essential to sustaining its aggressive low-cost fare policy.
For the accommodation sector in Maspalomas and Mogán, the regulatory battle against Ryanair represents a source of commercial instability due to the destination's heavy reliance on airline ancillary revenue. Ryanair reported nearly €5.000 billion in extras—such as seat selection, baggage handling, and priority boarding—in its latest annual results, representing approximately £24 per passenger and a third of the group's total revenue. If the CMA strictly enforces the UK's new Consumer and Digital Markets Act, the company could face fines of up to 10% of its annual global revenue, a critical financial scenario that would force Michael O'Leary's management to raise the base price of tickets to the Canary Islands to offset the losses.
Ryanair's management has responded by dismissing the investigation as "false" and inherently political, arguing that children do not pay the surcharge and that it is a distraction tactic by the British government to avoid lowering state airport taxes. This new institutional conflict comes on top of the historic €256 million fine imposed on the airline by the Italian competition authorities (AGCM) after it was accused of obstructing ticket sales through traditional travel agencies and tour operators. The accumulation of litigation in the archipelago's main source markets presents the tourism sector in southern Gran Canaria with the challenge of monitoring air connectivity channels that are increasingly strained by legal scrutiny, at a time when price transparency and consumer confidence dictate the spending decisions of European families.
