Low-cost airline Ryanair threatened to halt its expansion in Italy after Rome’s government imposed a ceiling on the prices of flights to the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, the newspaper reported. la republican.
The publication, cited by the bureau efreported the airline’s protest after the new rule, approved by decree on Monday, prompted Ryanair’s executive president Eddie Wilson to travel to Rome to meet Italian minister Adolfo Urso, claiming it violates the European rules.
“It is illegal and illogical. If this continues, instead of opening a new route from an Italian city to Catania (Sicily), we will fly more to Spain. Do you know where they applaud the decree? Malta, Cyprus, the Canary Islands… We’re going to fly there more instead of being stuck in Italy,” Wilson said.
The official admitted that prices had risen over the past year, but attributed the increases to rising demand due to the pandemic and airport charges, vehemently denying that the company is guided by a computer algorithm to set prices.
“It’s a conspiracy theory based on the fantasy of people who don’t have enough work to do,” he said.
Wilson also accused the executive led by Giorgia Meloni of promoting pricing more akin to that of the “Soviet Union in 1917”, which will have the opposite effect on the market.
The regulation prohibits algorithms that increase prices on domestic routes to and from the islands during periods of peak demand, for example due to seasonality or the state of emergency, and when the ticket price is 200% higher than the average airfare.
It is also considered an “unfair commercial practice” to use automated procedures to determine rates based on the user’s profile on the Internet or the type of electronic devices used to make reservations, when this causes damage.
Source: DN
