At the end of May 2024, representatives of the National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC) conducted a counseling session for economic operators at Henri Coandă International Airport.

On this occasion, the conduct of commercial activities (food and non-food product sales points, currency exchange offices, car rental centers, etc.) and the conditions and services provided to consumers by the Bucharest National Airports Company were verified.

Following the irregularities found at that time, ANPC commissioners issued complementary measures to remedy these issues, allocating a deadline for the implementation of these corrections.

On June 10, 2024, ANPC control teams verified how these measures had been implemented.

Thus, 26 economic operators operating in the consumer area of Bucharest-Otopeni International Airport were inspected, and despite the remediation measures ordered during the counseling two weeks earlier, the following sanctions were applied:

• 31 fines totaling 367,500 lei
• Permanent withdrawal from sale of products worth over 130,000 lei
• Temporary suspension of services for 11 work points of the inspected economic operators until the deficiencies are remedied

“We want all consumers to be fully protected, which is why economic operators must understand that counseling actions, conducted in the spirit of the law, are just as important, and ANPC inspections represent the legal and natural approach to verifying the measures ordered within them” - Sebastian Hotca, Interim President of ANPC.

The main violations of legal provisions found were:

• Use of unclean display cases for culinary preparations
• Use of storage spaces with broken seals and thick dirt
• Display for sale of milk-based products with added vegetable fats in a common space with dairy products
• Sale of finished products obtained by defrosting without visible consumer information that they originate from frozen products
• Use of unclean pastry/confectionery display cases with accumulated impurities and food residues in the ventilation area
• Failure to maintain recommended temperatures for storing frozen products
• Sale of food products without mentioning allergenic ingredients
• Unsanitary conditions for conducting activities: improperly sanitized flooring
• Sale of toys without necessary documents and without safety instructions and information translated into Romanian on the label
• Sale of food products without specific information on the label in Romanian
• Sale of textile products without Romanian translation of fiber composition on the label
• Use of worn plastic kitchen utensils
• Lack of display inside the currency exchange office of all traded currencies. (Photo: ANPC)