Romanian Consumer Protection Agency fines companies at Otopeni Airport for irregularities

Representatives of Romania's Consumer Protection Agency (ANPC) inspected economic operators at Bucharest's Otopeni Airport (Henri Conadă International Airport) and issued fines totaling nearly RON 370,000 (EUR 74,300). Among the irregularities found were dirty display cases and storage spaces, and failure to maintain the recommended temperature for frozen products.

The inspection was a follow-up of a series of talks with companies at the Bucharest airport that previously took place.

"At the end of May 2024, representatives of ANPC conducted a counseling session for economic operators at Henri Conadă International Airport. On this occasion, they checked the conduct of commercial activities (points of sale for food and non-food products, currency exchange offices, car rental centers, etc.) and the conditions and services provided to consumers. As a result of the irregularities found at that time, ANPC commissioners ordered complementary measures to remedy them, allocating a deadline for these corrections to be implemented," ANPC representatives said.

This week, ANPC checked how these measures were implemented. As such, 26 economic operators active in the consumer area of Bucharest-Otopeni International Airport were inspected and several sanctions were applied.

A total of 31 fines amounting to RON 367,500 were issued, and products worth over RON 130,000 were permanently removed from sale. Additionally, services were temporarily halted for 11 work points of the inspected economic operators until the deficiencies were corrected.

"We want all consumers to be fully protected, which is why economic operators must understand that counseling actions, carried out in the spirit of the law, are just as important, and ANPC inspections represent the legal and natural course of verifying the measures ordered during these sessions," said Sebastian Hotca, interim president of ANPC.

The main violations discovered were the use of unclean display cases for culinary preparations; the use of storage spaces with broken seals and dirt; the display for sale of milk-based products with added vegetable fats in the same space as dairy products; the sale of finished products obtained by defrosting without visibly informing consumers that they came from frozen products; and the use of unclean display cases for pastry/confectionery products, with an accumulation of impurities and food residues in the ventilation area.

Other irregularities found included the failure to maintain the recommended temperature for storing frozen products, selling food products without mentioning allergenic ingredients, unsanitary conditions for carrying out activities, improperly sanitized flooring, and others.