In the middle of summer, while demand for connections to and from Sicily grows, the high cost of flights returns before the Antitrust Authority. The Centre for International Development (Cid), a Palermo-based association active in consumer and citizen protection, represented and assisted by the law firm Palmigiano e Associati, has filed a complaint with the Competition and Market Authority asking to shed light on the mechanisms through which airfares are determined during periods of high mobility.
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The goal is not to assume in advance the existence of agreements or anti-competitive behaviors by the companies. The request is rather to enable the Antitrust Authority to verify, through data held by the carriers, whether price increases are entirely explainable by normal supply and demand dynamics or if there are elements that warrant further investigation.
The Antitrust Authority called to acquire data from the companies
The core of the complaint concerns information that consumers normally do not have. The Cid asks the Authority to acquire from the carriers data on the prices actually charged, the offered capacity, available seats, and aircraft load factors, as well as the criteria used in the fare determination systems. The price of an airline ticket can indeed change based on numerous variables: the time the booking is made, the seats still available, the flight load factor, the capacity scheduled by the company, demand trends, and the commercial strategies adopted by individual operators. For this reason, the association argues, only access to complete data can allow understanding what really happens during periods when demand increases. The requested analysis also concerns the structure of the main routes to and from the Island: the actual level of competition, the possible presence of operators with significant market power, and the ways prices are formed during peak mobility periods.
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The complaint includes price increases recorded during peak periods
Supporting the request is also a survey published in February 2026 on the trend of domestic flight prices during different periods of the year. For a family of three, on the Milan-Catania route, the total cost recorded rose from about 144 euros to about 1,427 euros between Carnival and the Christmas period, with a variation indicated at 892%. On the Milan-Palermo route, the comparison was instead between about 238 and 1,235 euros, equal to an increase of 419%. These are significant numbers, but the Cid itself places a precise limit on their interpretation: it is a snapshot of the offers available at certain times and not necessarily the prices paid by the majority of travelers. The data, therefore, are not used as proof of anti-competitive conduct, but as an element that, considering also the particular condition of Sicily, according to the association justifies opening an investigation. “We do not claim that a price increase, however considerable, automatically proves the existence of an agreement or abusive conduct,” explains lawyer Alessandro Palmigiano. “However, we ask that variations of this magnitude be examined through the investigative tools available to the Authority.”
Also targeted are the companies’ automated systems
A chapter of the complaint concerns the automated systems used by companies for fare management. The Cid asks the Antitrust Authority to verify whether these mechanisms operate according to normal economic optimization logics or whether, under certain conditions, they may produce problematic effects on the competitive functioning of the market or on the transparency of offers. Then there is the issue of the price actually visible to the consumer. The association highlights the need for the passenger to clearly know, before purchase, the total amount requested, including any additional costs and optional services.
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