For vueling, web accessibility is no longer an option and the obligation to have adapted platforms is part of reality. Otherwise, failure to comply with the requirements established by law implies consequences and not exactly positive ones. That is the situation that the well-known airline, belonging to the IAG company, is currently facing.
The company will have to pay 90,000 euros in fines for having failed to comply with almost 70 percent of the requirements of current regulations. Although the costs of the violation have been made known recently, the truth is that this is a case that has its origins in 2015. In that year, Vueling received a sanction for breaking the law. On that date, according to the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, the portal barely met 11 of the 38 requirements regarding web accessibility.
Three years later, in 2018, a new inspection began after the Office for Disability Assistance (OADIS) received a complaint from a user who expressed his dissatisfaction with the inaccessibility of the Vueling portal. The results were overwhelming: 26 of the 38 web accessibility requirements were not met in any way and only four were fully answered.
The report from the National Center for Accessibility Technologies (CENTAC), according to eldiario.es, points out that “68.4 percent of the requirements are not met” and more than 50 percent of the errors occur on the majority of the pages. A fact that for the entity is likely to reflect “a systematic problem in the application of accessibility criteria.”
The Vueling page had deficiencies for people with visual and motor disabilities, in addition to deficiencies in the labels on the forms. The most striking thing about this case is that, although the company has had the opportunity to adjust to accessibility standards, it has not done so in five years. The truth is that inaction after the error audit has a cost: 90,000 euros.
Vueling has told eldiario.es that approximately half of the corrections have already been executed and it is already working to execute the rest of the improvements. If these changes comply with accessibility criteria, the airline will avoid new fines, but it has been demonstrated that web accessibility is an obligation whose failure to comply has a price.
