Last Wednesday (30/03), the Procon of the Government of the State of Rio de Janeiro filed a public civil action against the aviation company Iberia Líneas Aéreas.
According to Procon-RJ, the company offered airline tickets for the Rio-Paris stretch on 28/12 last year, sold more than four thousand tickets and days later, even after confirming the purchase and issuing the ticket, the purchases were canceled. The municipality requests that travelers be fully compensated for material or moral damages due to failure to provide the service.
In the action, the Procon-RJ lawyers are requesting that Iberia pay compensation for material damages such as reimbursement of the amount spent by consumers on airline tickets and also the amount spent on hotels, vehicle rentals, tour packages and other similar ones if they have been hired.
It was also requested the payment of compensation for individual moral damages, on behalf of each consumer injured by the cancellation of airline tickets. In addition, compensation was also claimed for collective pain and suffering in the amount of R$1.000.000,00 (one million reais), to be allocated to the Special Fund for Consumer Protection and Defense Programs - FEPROCON.
“The airline's conduct goes beyond non-compliance with the offer, bringing a breach of expectations and material and moral damage to consumers. Just reversing the value of ticket purchases does not solve the problem of consumers who had already made hotel reservations and hired transfers, for example”, noted the president of Procon-RJ, Cássio Coelho.
In defense of the investigation instituted by Procon-RJ in January of this year to investigate the case, Iberia claimed that the cancellation of tickets sold on 28/12/21 occurred due to a pricing error.
However, issuing the ticket, debiting the consumer's credit card and taking at least three days to cancel the tickets, distorts the company's justification for not fulfilling the contract due to the existence of an alleged gross error.
The collective action will be able to help all the engers who had their plane tickets canceled between Rio and Paris. In this way, if at the end of the action the sentence is favorable to the municipality, all these travelers will benefit.
Street: Procon-RJ
