Spanish airline Vueling is fined €28,000 for denying a woman boarding ‘because her cleavage was showing’

THE Spanish budget airline Vueling has been slapped with a €28,000 fine after it refused to let a female passenger board a flight from Mallorca airport because she was wearing a tight-fitting top that showed her cleavage. 

The incident actually took place in 2019, but only this week has the resolution of a complaint filed by the Facua consumer rights group come to light, after it requested information from the state Transparency body.

It was the handling staff at the airport in the Balearic Islands who refused the female passenger permission to board the plane headed to Barcelona, something that Facua claimed was ‘sexism’. 

The airline left the woman stranded, despite calls from her fellow passengers to let her on the plane. 

According to Facua, there are no regulations that expressly prohibit passengers from boarding a plane due to their clothing, provided that there is no public order issue. 

The company was slapped with the €28,000 fine back in October 2020, something that Facua celebrated this week. 

However, the association called for bigger fines for these airlines, based on their ‘volume of business and profits’. 

Last month, Spain’s Consumer Ministry levied fines of €150 million on four budget airlines – Ryanair, Volotea, Vueling and easyJet – for what it called abusive practices, such as charging for taking hand luggage on board the plane and for the printing of boarding passes.

Facua has since set up a platform to help passengers reclaim these charges.