Judge annuls Ryanair's obligatory payment for printing tickets or boarding passes

SPAIN (Agencies) Further to our item last week on the subject, a judge in Barcelona has decreed the annulment of a clause in the contract between passengers and Ryanair whereby the airline obliges the passenger to print a ticket when booking online, but will charge €40 for doing so at the check-in counter. The judge, Bárbara María Córdoba of the 1st Mercantile Court of Barcelona, concludes that Ryanair is "subject to the general international laws as well as European and national ones", all of which place the obligation of issuing tickets and boarding passes on the airline, according to sentence issued by the court. In the meantime, and more recently, Ryanair issued a statement as follows: "Ryanair today (Jan 18) has instructed its Spanish lawyers to appeal what Ryanair believes is a bizarre and unlawful ruling by the Barcelona Commercial Court No.1 last week that Ryanair’s €40/£40 boarding card reissue fee is unlawful." (Read the full statement here.) Referring to a Junta de Andalucía warning about the charge (our item last week again), according to Europa Sur, Ryanair says that "the Junta doesn't know what it's talking about" and "there is no Spanish law that forbids" the charge. We were unable to find such a statement on the airline's website.